


A Mouthful Of Razor Blades

by zippkat



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Drugs & Alcohol & Violence, Gore, Group Sex, M/M, Multi, OT5, POV Second Person, Werewolf AU, people get murdered but not anyone we know, realistic pack structure, the dream pack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-05-19 18:44:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 37,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5977261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zippkat/pseuds/zippkat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Is it still cannibalism to eat a person if you’re not human?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It’s never a good day when you wake up with blood in your hair.

You’re naked, sticky, and covered in leaves. There are scratches down your side and something like gnawed bone between your fingers. Your stomach aches from being full; looking down is grotesque.

This is not the first time you’ve woken up like this. Temporary amnesia is par for the course; only, usually,you’re not alone, or deep in unfamiliar woods. You sift through the slowly returning memories of the last night, but you don’t find much, and what you can remember is dim and unhelpful.

You decide to start slow and locate your clothes. The rest will follow, you promise yourself, and start to walk. The sun has risen well over the horizon, so you’re at least warm as you backtrack through the woods. The light seems unnaturally vibrant, and whatever you took last night must still be in your system because, you swear, you can almost smell the changes in the air around you. You can definitely smell something rank-- and discover your clothes in a shredded heap as the source.

Yet another new experience, you think to yourself as you lift what’s left of your shirt to your nose. Christ, why didn’t anyone tell you how strong you smell? You make a mental note to shower more often. Your phone is in the pocket of your jeans, which are still mostly intact, but everything looks like it should be burned. Fuck. Talk about the morning after.

You get as dressed as you can and take out your phone. You have four missed calls: one from your dealer, two from a blocked number, and one from your grandmother. You ignore them all in favor of texting Swan, your roommate. He’s always got the strangest little pills and he isn’t afraid to share.

_ You: w/e u gave me ln hits hard _

_ Swan: I didn’t give you anything last night? _

_ You: shit _

Christ, this is so cliche.

You walk a bit further, following the series of broken branches and kicked up leaves, in the hope they’ll lead you to civilization. The woods are starting to look more familiar, although you’re not really sure how you got from the party to them. You’re sweating by the time you get to the empty lot outside Nino’s, the local pizza place, feeling so lightheaded it’s a surprise you haven’t passed out yet. You’re beginning to think the blood is probably your own. 

Your car is not in the lot. Fuck, did you fly into the woods? This is ridiculous. You consider calling Swan, but you don’t really think you could survive the endless harassment.

Still, you don’t want to walk all the way back to school. You’re sitting on the curb, considering your options and trying to keep from flashing anyone when a very familiar car pulls up next to you.

“Skov?”  

“Hey, Jiang.” It’s your dealer. You like him well enough, but you’re not friends. No one is friends with their dealer. That’s not how it works.

“Rough Saturday night?” He laughs. He smokes too much and you can hear it in in his voice. You grin despite yourself. Perfect.

“You could say that. You at Kavinsky’s last night?”

“Hell no, that guy is a goddamned freak.” He says it like he admires him. Joseph Kavinsky is like that.

You’ve seen them together before, so he probably knows what he's talking about. You’ve seen a lot of people with Joseph Kavinsky. 

“I mean, man, have you looked in a mirror lately?” He reaches out and pulls a leaf out of your hair. “Maple isn’t a good look for you.”

“You don’t think so? But I wore this for you, babe,” you say, pushing your hair out of your eyes and giving him a winning grin. Jiang laughs again; it sounds too loud and you don’t quite wince. He still notices.

“Want something to take the edge off, man? Hangover discount.” Oh god, you could kiss him.

“Yeah,” you say. “I could use some hair of the dog.” It’s something your grandmother says, and the words feel strange in your mouth. Jiang grins.

“I got pizza, too,” he says, and brandishes his box. “And my family’s out of town till Tuesday.”

“You are amazing,” you say. Then you pause. “Could you give me a ride?”

“Nah dude, I expect you to fucking walk.” He unlocks the door, still grinning. “If you’re good, you can even borrow a shirt.”

“You saying you don’t like the view?”

The inside of his Supra is heaven after the woods, soft and dark. You close your eyes for a second, and you’re out so fast you don’t hear his reply.

That’s how you find yourself in Jiang’s clothes, in his room, in his family’s house, half awake.

“You cleaned up,” you observe. There’s not a single pair of dirty boxers on the floor, a massive difference from the last time you were over. It still smells of weed and sweat, so it's not completely unfamiliar.

“Everything has its place,” says Jiang. He seems a lot taller when you’re both standing, all sharp angles and vague malevolence. Like a scarecrow. It’s kind of hot.

Your skin has started to itch with anticipation.

“Like here-- this is where this belongs,” he says, shouldering you into his trash. You bounce off easily and fling yourself onto his perfectly made bed. He let you shower too, which was way too nice of him, and you’re kind of wondering if he’s secretly a serial killer or something. You don’t think you’d mind as long as he’d still hook you up.

You close your eyes for only a few seconds, and you can see the moon behind your eyelids. It’s too bright, completely full, and something about it makes you want to bite. Most things do.

As though chasing your thoughts, the next thing you know, there are soft lips on your own. You part them and let Jiang blow smoke into your mouth. It’s good, everything’s good, the mysterious horrors of last night and this morning just the shape of where a memory should be. Jiang touches you, and it’s fine, you only want to destroy him a little.

“It’s been a while,” he says, into your neck, and you pull at his hair.

“Been busy,” you say, and let him stroke over your spine. It’s not the truth, and you think he knows, but you also think he doesn’t care. You don’t do repeat performances, usually, but the familiarity is nice after the night you’ve probably had.

You kiss languidly for a few minutes, heat starting slow in your throat and moving down, before your stomach growls loud enough to make you stop. 

You pass the joint between you, still touching skin to skin. Jiang tries to remember where he left the pizza.

“So, Kavinsky,” says Jiang, as you inhale, watching him. He finally locates the box on the floor next to the bed.

“Mmm.”

“I’m not criticizing, just curious.”

“About what?” you say. “Whether he’s as good as you? I wouldn’t know.” He stretches, grabbing for the box, and for a second you are tempted again.

“Yeah? So that wasn’t the walk of shame I caught you on?” He takes a slice of pizza and delicately folds it in half. You can’t not watch: the point of pizza is greasy, messy hedonism. Finding a way to eat a slice neatly is the closest thing to blasphemy you’ve ever seen.

“Yeah, sorry, you missed the orgy in the woods last night,” you say, and take a slice as well, to distract yourself.

“Orgy? More like ritual sacrifice, considering the blood you were all dressed up in.”

You snort. “It’s the newest thing.”

“What, wendigo initiation?” 

“Yeah, totally. Vampire AA meeting. The snacks got out of hand.”

“Whatever, don’t tell me then.” He snatches the joint from your loose fingers.

“It was just a party. I got really fucked up.” You take a slice as payment, then snatch it back, holding it out of his reach.

“And lost, apparently.”

You take a long drag. “Apparently.”

“So, you don’t know about the girl.” He says it like an afterthought.

“What girl?” You know some things about some girls, maybe even some girls last night, but nothing specific comes to mind.

“The girl in the woods.”

“I love cryptic sentences without explanation.”

“You’re too easy, man.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Some girl got murdered last night. In the woods.”

“... In Henrietta?”

“No, dipshit, in Minnesota.”

“Harsh.”

“It’s like, the talk of the town. On the news all ‘foul play suspected’ and ‘ritualistic mutilation’. I don’t think that’s Kavinsky’s thing, but what do I know about Joseph Kavinsky?”

You kind of wish he would stop saying ‘Kavinsky’. “I don’t know anything about it. Crime is on the rise, or whatever.”

Jiang snorts, choking on smoke. “You’re fucking cold, Skov.”

“As ice,” you agree.

“Okay, that just made you sound like a fucking loser.”

“Yeah, but you’re the fag.”

He laughs at that, like you knew he would.

You both get good and stoned, watching whatever bullshit Jiang has in his Netflix list and eating until you feel sick again. His hand is on your bare chest, but he doesn’t press you for anything further.

Something onscreen howls and you squint. You can’t tell if you’re watching a horror movie or a documentary. Knowing Jiang it could be either. The thing howls again, thin and high from Jiang’s laptop speakers, and something inside you drops.

“Skov?”

A memory: dogs, massive dogs, crowding around you, their breath hot and damp. Your arm hurts. You’re not crying, but maybe you were. Something smells like blood. It might be you.

“Dude, Skov, are you okay?”

Another memory: white fur and black gums, you’re doubled over, and you watch the skin of your hands split into claws, into fur and fucking paws.

_ “Don’t look so surprised, _ ” says someone who’s no longer next to you.  _ “You were halfway there.” _

You jerk away from the memories and from Jiang in one movement, slamming yourself against his headboard. Jiang squints at you.

“Are you still tripping?” he asks, hands spread, placating. For some reason that makes you want to punch him.

“Probably,” you say, and your voice only shakes a little. It’s getting dark out. “What time is it?”

“Like, seven,” he says. “Why? Got somewhere to be?”

“Yeah,” you say. “I should go.”

Something in Jiang’s face shutters, then closes. “Yeah,” he says. “Alright. Got a ride?”

“Yeah,” you say, even though you don’t. “Thanks for the food and shit.”

“Hey, anytime.” His eyes follow you out of the room.

You almost make it out the front door before you puke, heaving right onto Jiang’s father’s nicest carpet. There’s blood and spit hanging from your mouth like drool, but you can’t take your eyes off the fingers.

There are definitely human fingers, bloody and half digested, in your pool of sick. You puke again, and again, until nothing comes up and you feel empty and hollow. What the fuck. What the fuck.

“Holy shit,” says Jiang, face drawn and pale. He must have followed you down the stairs, maybe in case you changed your mind, or needed help. Poor fucking Jiang. Your head is throbbing so hard, you can barely hear him.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” you say, and your vision statics out and turns black. The darkness is nice, but it can’t last. You feel like something’s clawing at your insides, not in a painful way, but in a hungry way. You can relate.

Your headache is spreading, from your skull into your spine. You didn’t know that was possible. You didn’t know any of this was possible; you don’t feel real, you don’t feel like yourself.

“Skov?” It’s Jiang. He’s still here, so you probably haven’t been on the ground that long, it just feels like forever. “I’m gonna call an ambulance, okay?”

“Hurts,” you groan. “Fuck.” The pain is travelling faster now, spreading from your spine outward into your bones. You try to move your arms--

“What the fuck--”

Your skin splits at the joint, you can feel your fur busting free. Your teeth fall out of your mouth, blood making your lips slick, and new canines push through your gums.

“Oh, fuck this.” Jiang says, and bolts.

You howl your misery, bones cracking and shifting. You don’t want him to leave; the loneliness seems even more unbearable than the pain. You try to limp after, falling forward onto your hands as your limbs shift and twist grotesquely, but you can’t find him, can only find the door, closed, locked in your face. You throw yourself against it, until you’re sure you can’t force it open, and then you begin to pace.

You can feel them beneath your fur, your pack, your family. You can feel them long for you as you long for them, but you can’t find your way out. The moon taunts you from outside the walls, and you itch to run.

You are so hungry.

You are so lonely.

The sound that comes from your throat is not a howl, but it's not human enough to be a scream. You tip your head back, your ruff shaking with your call. You know your pack; you know they won’t leave you.

Sure enough, before the moon has even moved, the door to your cell cracks open. You know the human boy who approaches you, his eyes wide with wonder. You know him down to your bones; pack, pack, pack.

He embraces you even as your claws catch on his skin. Your fangs sink deep into his flesh, tearing his humanity out with your teeth. He cries out in pain, in ecstasy, with fear. He shudders as the change takes him, your lovely packmate, his sounds becoming more inhuman as he twists and shakes. You lean into him, offering comfort for his first change.

Behind the door, you can feel eyes on you. Not human, not wolf, not anywhere in between. Something is watching you become and you want to rip it to pieces, you want to shred the door and run, but then your packmate is struggling to his feet. He stumbles, newly born, and you sing for him. He sings back, all uncertain tenor.

Far away, you can hear the others, strong and sure.

.

When you wake up next, in much the same way as the previous day, you call Swan.

“What the fuck?” he says, voice fuzzy with sleep.

You tell him.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he says, and hangs up.

Jiang’s next to you, sprawled naked and fast asleep on his father’s ruined carpet. There are scratches so much like your own over his sides.

You look down at your own hands, considering. You put them against the claw marks on his skin; your hand fits. You wonder if you were human when you did this to him.

Christ, what the fuck is happening to you?

You can remember the invitation: Kavinsky stopped you in the hall, produced a sharpie from his back pocket and drew a quick pentagram on the back of your hand.

“Sundown tonight,” he said. “My place. Bring something to get fucked up to.”

“Cool, so just myself then,” you’d said, and he’d laughed. High and haunting. Something inside you was burning, was about to burn, was only ash. You lived for the feeling. You showed up, not early, not late, and brought all the best parts of yourself. You remember getting out of your car, eyes on the smoke in the sky, on the rapidly burning stack of wood in the yard. The air was crisp and cool, not quite winter, and you were so very eager to be eaten alive.

Then things start to get patchy. A beer-- shots?-- someone’s hot breath on your neck. The rev of engines, callused fingers running over the pentagram on your skin, your own breath coming hard and sharp into your lungs. Something chasing you, a roaring fire, and the scent of something newly familiar. Like dog, but wilder. 

In hindsight, maybe it’s not all that surprising.

A text pulls you out of your thoughts.

_ Swan: I’m here. _

You stagger to your feet, not even bothering to try and preserve your dignity. The house is a wreck around you; chewed furniture, broken glass, blood, and who knows what else. Not really much different from your average party, except maybe more fur. You open the door.

Swan, leaning against his Golf, tilts his sunglasses down to get a better look at you.

“You weren’t kidding,” he says, after a second.

You hold the door open for him, then try to hunt up some pants, something. Swan is careful not to touch anything, just wanders around the destruction, face unreadable. Once you’re clothed you return to him, standing above still-sleeping Jiang.

“New friend?” he asks you, just a hint of acid in his tone. You shrug. Something about Swan always makes you want to swallow your own tongue. Especially this week. You follow him into the kitchen, watch him examine one of the fridges, the one you didn’t rip the door off. There’s something dark and sticky on the floor. Swan steps around it.

Your throat tightens, and you can almost see Swan somewhere else, leaning into a different fridge, the line of his back visible through the thin t-shirt stretched over his shoulders. Your t-shirt. Your house, your grandmother’s fridge. More a memory every day that passes since the summer.

“Want one?” he asks, grabbing a beer from the remaining fridge.

“Sure,” you say, even though it makes your stomach twist. You could probably do with something a lot stronger, but you don’t say that. He throws you one and leans against the ruined counter, the picture of ease.

“Want to fill me in?” he says. On the phone, you’d only gotten as far as ‘I think I’m a werewolf and I need you to come get me I’m at Jiang’s can you--’ before he’d stopped you.

“I told you,” you say, and he looks at your face for the first time. He looks tired.  

“I thought you were tripping,” he says.

“I haven’t actually ruled that out yet,” you say. “Although this seems pretty real.” You gesture to the entire house. It is a little bit hard to deny.

“You are in the shit,” he observes, following your gesture.

“Jiang is in the shit,” you say.

“Because of you,” he says. It’s almost a question. You shrug. “Want to start at the beginning?”

“Not really,” you say, but you start talking anyway. You only get a few sentences in before Swan goes rigid.

“Wait-- Kavinsky?” he says it like it explains everything. Maybe it does.

“Yeah,” you say, unnecessary, and trying not to watch the way rage blooms in his face.

“The only things good about Joseph Kavinsky,” says Swan. “Are his dick and his drugs, but neither of them are worth his fucking face. Fucking-- Joseph Kavinsky, Skov? Are you fucking kidding me?”

Usually, one of your favorite things about Swan is the way he goes from zero to dangerously enraged in a second. Today you’re not in the fucking mood.

“No, I’m not fucking kidding you. Everyone knows Kavinsky. He’s got good shit.”

Swan sneers. “Yeah, good shit. You’re so fucking predictable. You’re so fucking  _ stupid _ . I don’t know why I’m surprised.”

“Can you get over your pathetic hate crush for five seconds?” you ask him. “You hate Kavinsky, we all get it, you can stop fucking overcompensating now. This is serious, I turned into a massive dog and bit Jiang, I--”

You really should have known better. You shouldn't have called. You shouldn’t have said Kavinsky's name out loud, especially not to Swan. (You’ve caught Swan watching Kavinsky, and the memory is something black and sharp in your throat. His eyes are always a little too far away, his mouth slightly open, like he’s high or like he wants to be high.)

Swan moves like he’s going to throw his bottle at you, but aims away at the last moment and it shatters against Jiang’s formerly-pristine cedar cabinets. His eyes are unfocused.

“Why are you such a fucking mess?” he asks, and it stings. It shouldn’t, you’ve been having eerily similar conversations to this for months now, and yet.

“Fuck you,” you say, very quietly.

“Yeah?” The word is too full of knowledge; you flush, and swallow, dry.

You’ve used up all your words. You can’t do this, you can’t let him do this, not today. Not now. You reach for his arm and he flinches back.

“Don’t fucking touch me.” He isn’t looking at you, won’t look at you, prefers the way his shattered beer bottle looks perfectly at home in the ruin of the house. It’s more interesting than you, anything would be more interesting than you, despite your new movie monster skin. You want to bite him, or hit him, or--

You wait, hands held very carefully at your sides. Swan takes a few breaths. The air is electric.

“You aren’t surprised, are you? By any of this?” He says it like it’s an accusation.

“Some,” you say, because you can’t tell him he’s right. Not out loud. Swan laughs without humor. “You?”

“This is the freakiest thing I have ever been a part of,” he says, and you can-- it’s fucking bizarre, but you can smell the lie on him.

You stare at him. He stares at the floor. Henrietta doesn’t raise normal children, you know this, and now you know he knows.

“We’re going to be late for school,” he says, after a moment. “I don’t know why you called.”

He leaves, not bothering to shut the door behind him. You want to ask him why he came, and why he didn’t drive off. What he’s thinking. You don’t follow him past the living room.

You watch him leave, and just as he slams the door, Jiang stirs, blinking his soft eyes, sitting up. Something inside your chest crumples at the sight. You don’t know what to say.

“Hey,” he says, rough.

“Hey,” you say. “How much--?”

“All of it.”

“Sorry,” you say. He shrugs.

“Swan’s right,” he says. Your heart clenches. “We’re going to be late. You can borrow some clothes.” You look down at yourself; you’re wearing the ones he found you in. You can see a bruise on your thigh, just a light shade of yellow. It hurts anyway.

“You don’t want to skip?”

Jiang just looks at you. It’s no secret that he does his best to almost fail out every semester, something about pressure from his family, but there’s a fine line between fucking up and actually losing everything. Today seems to tilt toward the latter, better to not take chances.

“It’ll be good for us,” he says, and punches you in the shoulder as he steps past.

.

He’s almost right; school is a relief. After the nightmare that your weekend has been, it seems like a chance for some normalcy. At least, until you actually step inside and it hits you.

Wolf. You can smell it everywhere. Jiang looks at you, and you know he can smell it too.

“See you in Chem,” you say, even though the last thing you want to do is leave him. Jiang nods, starts heading for his locker two halls down. You watch him until he’s out of sight. You think about turning around and skipping. But no, you know what you have to do. For Swan, if for no other reason.

You know Joseph Kavinsky hasn’t picked this Monday to skip.

You ask around, and get pointed to first hour Latin, which is on the other side of campus. The walk gives you plenty of time to think about chickening out. There are other ways you could approach this, other ways that include a call to your grandmother, silver bullets, silver knives.

That seems like the best plan, the most reasonable. As your father says, there’s nothing you do before twenty-five that can’t be erased by the right friends in right places, and your father has so many friends. 

Kavinsky is leaning against Borden House like he’s waiting for you. He’s everything you remember him to be: dark eyes, corrosive grin, dangerous. Clearly from somewhere else, but he fits right in, so perfectly the monster of the town. There’s a cigarette in his hand. As you get nearer, he takes a drag from it, then holds it out to you. You accept; it’s damp from his mouth, and you try not to think about how this is how he tastes. You hand it back. He smells like wolf.

“Enjoy the party?” His voice is slow and heavy.

“Not really,” you say, and he grins at the lie.

“You kinda went off toward the end of it,” he says, like he’s conceding a point. 

“Yeah,” you say. “About that.” Kavinsky takes another drag. Now that you’re here, you don’t know what to say.

“How much do you really remember about Saturday night?” 

“Enough.” Too much and too little at the same time. 

“That’s what I thought.” Another drag. Another exhale. You watch and can’t help but notice his middle finger and right finger are the same length. “Listen, you were really fucked up, I was pretty fucked up, that’s all there is to it.”

You just wait, silent.

He drops his cig and crushes it into the pavement. He’s looking at you like he’s searching for something.

“Hey man, tell me, did your parents mean to have you? Or were you the career-ending surprise?”

“Fuck y--”

“I just want to know how much experience you’ve got being an accident, is all.”

“I wasn’t,” you say, because he drew a fucking pentagram on your hand and you know your myths, you grew up with these stories.

“What? You think you’re special? Man, you’re nothing.” He says it like he means it, like it’s the only thing true in the world. But-- you can feel it, the way his pulse skips, even as his voice is perfectly calm. Just a tiny imperfection. 

You don’t understand; your throat constricts until you can barely breathe.

“See you around,” he claps you on the shoulder to push you aside. “Probably.”

.

School feels a little bit pointless after that, so you go home to your dorm, waiting for Swan with half anticipation, half dread, but he never shows.

It bothers you that you can’t remember the night you were bitten. It bothers you that you don’t know for sure it was Joseph Kavinsky that bit you, turned you. It bothers you that this entire experience might just be a trip gone horribly horribly wrong. There’s an aching in your chest, just under your ribs, where you feel hollow and lost. It’s not unlike a particularly shitty low, only it’s there all the time since the night you can’t remember. The only thing that alleviates it even a little is being near Jiang, or Swan. Or Kavinsky.

The memory of it, the disinterested curve of his mouth, burns shame into your throat like you failed something you didn’t even know was a test. 

You start looking around your room for something to take the edge off. You find Swan’s stash, roll yourself a joint, and take a hit. It doesn’t help much. Shit, you don’t want to be here. You know you aren’t thinking clearly but there’s nothing you can really do about it.

The long drive back to Jiang’s doesn’t sound appealing, especially since you don’t know where your car is. You wonder if you should report it stolen or what. Your head hurts.

You sleep for a while. You dream. You wake up feeling just as shitty as before.

When you were a kid, you realized that you weren’t quite like anyone else. You were good at hitting, and kicking, and when the other assholes at school came around you were always ready for them. You were more willing to hurt than they were, more prepared, and you got sent home a lot. Once, someone had to go to the hospital. Later, when your mouth got too big for your body, and there were just too many, you were the one in the hospital.

Neither episode bothered you much. You healed quickly and you learned to do better next time, to hit harder, to fight quicker. It was always easier to keep destroying things than to stop.

When you put the boy in the hospital, you could have just as easily put him in the ground. You can’t remember how the fight started-- the important part happened after, with the gym teacher pulling you off and everyone shouting and his tooth, bloody and complete, next to your shoe on the ground.

Your grandmother cried and your father yelled over the phone, about school and a lawsuit and bad press, but you didn’t pay attention to it.

During the fight, before you’d thrown your second punch, but after he’d thrown his, you’d met his eyes and known. The world had made sense, in that single heavy breath of tension, and then there hadn’t been anything at all. You were somehow something better than yourself, and so was he, and he’d been grinning until his skull cracked against the asphalt.

Years later he pushed you up against a locked door at a party and let you taste the mouth you’d once ruined. He’d been the first person to touch you with intent other than destruction and you’d thought, maybe--

You go to take another hit, only to find its turned to ash in your hands. A fucking waste. You’ll have to pay Swan back. Speaking of, Swan still isn’t here; evening has come and the moon is threatening to crown. You wonder if you should lock yourself in the bathroom. You can’t summon the willpower to sit up, let alone leave your room. 

You wait, instead. For anything; the moon’s call, a familiar engine, for your phone to ring. 

The moon comes first. 

You watch it rise from your bed, feeling the other skin, the one just below your own, begin to stir. It’s weak at first; the moon is beginning to wane. You don’t even try to fight it, though, you just slip into your fur like you were born to it. This change comes on you differently; it feels a little like you’re dying, it feels like a little like you’re being born.

.

You find your pack easily enough. You can hear them, in your head and in your blood. There are no locks this time, no heavy doors to keep you barred. You detour through human streets, a stray dog, your ears pricked to the wind. Something you can’t define tries to stop you, nudging around your belly like you’ve eaten something bad. You pause to nip at yourself, in case it’s a flea, and then shake. The feeling ebs.

There doesn’t seem to be room in your head for memories, or the sharp bite of embarrassment you get from them. It’s easier. It feels like, like you’re not you anymore, you’re made up of movement, of power, of will.

You hunt your pack. You find Yours, first, hidden away in some human dwelling. He is thin and dark, with wild eyes, and when he sees you through the glass he claws at it, desperate to get to you. You have no trouble breaking through; the broken glass cuts at your muzzle, but you barely notice.

Jiang leaps at you, his entire body wriggling with pleasure, as he licks at your jaw and presses his fur to yours. His glee is infectious; you nip at his ear, press your mouth to his ruff, then leap away, off into the night. His breath on your heels feels natural, like he belongs.

The night feels like it’s waiting.

Your bones tingle with the scent of the night air. Far in the distance you can hear—no, it’s not audible, it’s coming from inside of you— something howling. Your blood strains toward the noise, and before you have time to blink, you find them. Your pack.

They are unmistakably, intoxicatingly yours. Even if you couldn’t smell them, couldn’t smell the way their scent is so close to your own, you would know.

The first wolf you meet is the strongest of you all, a buff brown color, with dark eyes. His shoulders are solid and you know, with certainty, that he could kill you without even trying. Well, if he could catch you.

He greets you first, black lips pulled back in a grin. A little bit threatening, a little welcoming. You grin back, dancing around him, and he nips gently at your hip, just friendly biting. He smells like pack, like exhaust, and like dried blood. You love it.

You let him greet Jiang, just as another wolf steps out of the shadows. For a second, you think you’ve been struck by something heavy, like a train or a building. You can smell yourself on him and him on you and you know, with blood deep certainty, that this wolf made you. You belong to him; nothing else has ever felt so true or real.

Your maker is bone-white, with the darkest eyes you’ve ever seen.  He’s not as solid as the other wolf, not as lithe as Jiang, and not as quick boned as you are, but you can feel his strength from several lengths away. He grins at you as well; something about it promises bloodshed. Your heart hammers in your chest. He steps up to you, moving strangely, like he’s stalking something, and meets your eyes. You look away. You do not bow to him, but you look away.

He presses his teeth into your shoulder, and you let him, legs shaking. When he pulls away you can see his teeth are stained red. You have never felt less or more like yourself.

Without warning, the white wolf throws his head back and howls, loud and piercing.  It wouldn’t be difficult to mistake it for a human scream. 

The real hunt begins.

You fall in beside Jiang, racing through streets and trees alike. You scare a couple of humans walking home late, snarling and snapping as you weave between them. No blood is shed, not yet, and the thrill of anticipation makes you faster. Then your leader is darting into the woods, and you follow him between the trees that whisper. The four of you make barely any sound, unless you want to, and then you yip and howl and scream to the night.

It is belonging of the deepest kind. You are with your pack. They are with you. You could devour the world. You feel light, like you’ve just woken up from a nightmare.

You smell blood; you follow the others down a dense deer path, the brambles snagging at your skin. You pay it no mind; something is dying in the grove just ahead. Eager, you worm your way past the large wolf until you’re running just behind your leader.

There is blood, too much for the small ruined thing to survive. It’s trying hard, though, although its guts are hanging out. You surround it quickly, pushing at each other to get close. The thing is making soft, pathetic noises; in some distant part of your mind, it bothers you. You hesitate.

Then your leader rips out its throat, and the noises stop. You feel right again; your stomach growls. The twitching stops  just as you begin to feed.

.

This time, when you wake up bloody and naked and sore, you aren’t alone. Two other boys are sprawled around you; Jiang is one, his arm looped over your waist and his face buried in your back. You pull away slowly, trying not to disturb him.

The other is curled toward you, face resting on the bare ground, less than five inches from yours. You can feel his breath on your lips.  You don’t recognize him until he opens his eyes: Prokopenko, who is dangerous and closely associated with all the worse parts of Henrietta. He grins big; his teeth are also stained with blood. You think you might be sick.

“Rise and shine,” says a voice.  Both you and Prokopenko twist, looking past your shoulder. Jiang begins to stir.

Joseph Kavinsky is fully dressed, and his face is clean. His expression is not any less terrifying for it. The same, newly familiar feeling of hunt-anticipation returns, twisting your stomach.

“Listen,” he says, voice dry, regarding you each in turn. “The cops are gonna be around soon. You should get up.”

“Why’re the cops here?” Prokopenko asks, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. Kavinsky grins, a hollow thing.

“You boys ruined dinner,” he says.

“Huh?” says Jiang.

“K, what--” Proko starts, but your stomach twists. You are suddenly and violently sick into the bushes. A human eye rolls off your tongue, gelatinous, crushed, just barely recognizable.

“Fuck.” Your voice is wrecked.

“Yeah,” says Kavinsky. “Well, close enough, anyway.”

Through the pounding in your head, as you stumble to your feet and begin to run, you realize you’ve made the biggest mistake of your fucking life.

It feels better than you expected.


	2. Chapter 2

Kavinsky drives the four of you to school after you find where he’s stashed his Mitsubishi. Apparently this sort of thing happens often enough he knows to plan for it. No one speaks; his stereo pumps frantic bass through your bones, keeping you on just this side of wakefulness. Jiang leans into you like he’s always been doing it and you can feel his pulse match the music. His skin is fever hot. You think you might be in shock. 

You have just enough time to run back to your dorm and put on something decent before class starts. Jiang comes with you; there is no evidence that Swan came back last night. You try not to think about either fact too much, you just let Jiang use your toothbrush and wear your spare uniform.

You half-sleep through classes. You share World History and English with Swan, and when he doesn’t show to either your stomach hurts. Prokopenko sits next to you in Latin. 

“We should talk,” he says, voice deceptively mild. “After school.”

“Alright,” you say. Your teacher, Mr. Barrington Whelk, glares at you from the front of the room. You give him your best vacant look.

Jiang sits next to you in Chemistry, a little too close. If anyone notices, they don’t say anything. (No one’s said much about you since you knocked Tad Carruther’s cousin’s front teeth out last year.) Your clothes on him don’t quite fit.

“Proko wants us to meet him after school,” says Jiang.

“I heard,” you say.

You spend your next class outside behind the dumpsters, smoking furiously. Your hands haven't stopped shaking since you woke up. Your stomach roils and squeezes; you didn’t have lunch, didn’t think you’d be able to keep it down. So you smoke until it all lessens some, or at least until you run out of cigarettes. If you thought he’d answer, you’d text Swan for something stronger.

Then class is over and Prokopenko’s waiting for you by his car, a Golf. It’s the same model as Swan’s. You try not to look at it.

Jiang’s laughing at something when you slide up next to him, the brown of your fingers contrasting with his pale hands.

“So then,” Prokopenko continues, voice full of suppressed humor. “Kid fucking drinks it, I shit you not.”

“That’s fucking disgusting,” says Jiang, but he’s still laughing. Then they both look at you. You look back, impassive as you can manage.

“Let’s go for a ride,” says Prokopenko.

Jiang takes shotgun, you curl up on the backseat and watch the sky race over you. Proko’s music isn’t as violent as Kavinsky’s, or maybe he’s just playing it softer so he can hear Jiang talk.

“Did you bite Skov?” he asks, after a moment.

“No,” says Prokopenko. “K did.”

“Did K bite you?”

“No. I don’t know who did. I’ve always been this way. Kavinsky found me when he moved here, or whatever. He was already what he was. I mean, you’ve seen his hands right?”

“What?”

“His middle finger and his ring finger are the same length.”

“That’s a strange way to tell if someone’s a werewolf,” says Jiang, like it’s normal, like this is really happening. “How does it work?”

“The finger thing? I dunno.”

“No, all of it.”

You watch a dozen different buildings flash by in the window.

“Fuck, man, you go right for the tough ones, don’t you?”

“Sure.” You can hear the flint sharp smile. It makes you feel strange, listening to them.

Prokopenko explains then, how the wolf is you and also something separate, how control gets better with time, how the only time you can’t control your shift is when the moon is fat and high. He tells you about pack, how scent and something stronger makes you belong to other wolves. The way he says it, is like he’s trying not to say  _ us _ but it’s what he means. 

He doesn’t talk about the girl who you maybe ate, the first time, or the person you definitely ate last night. He doesn’t talk about Henrietta or the woods and you know better than to ask. Jiang asks a lot of questions, talk a lot, but doesn’t really say much.

You know a fair amount about Prokopenko. You know he’s friendly with Kavinsky, but most of the worst boys at Aglionby are friendly with Kavinsky. You know he was born somewhere else but grew up in Virginia. You know he almost got expelled sophomore year for dealing, but his mother (his father is dead, you heard, or maybe was just never around. He never needed to be, as Ms. Prokopenko owns most of the U.S. interest in something illegal, as well as half the judges in the south. So you heard.) smoothed the whole thing over, and as a result there’s a whole extra mechanical engineering wing to the library this year.

You’ve seen him at parties sometimes, drinking too much and smoking too much and always with a girl hanging around. You’ve seen him with a broken bottle in his fist and broken teeth, standing over one of the local boys. You don’t remember what they were arguing over, but he sure made a striking figure.

“Did Kavinsky choose me, or was it an accident?” you ask, and they both pause, like they’d forgot you were there. You know Prokopenko, at least, is faking.

“You were the only one at that party with a fucking pentagram on your hand,” says Prokopenko, a hint of scorn in his face. You raise your hand to your face and grin to yourself, pleased with your new senses and with the angry thing living inside you. You can still make out the faint residue of sharpie on your dark skin.

“So, where are we going?” says Jiang, glancing back at you, expression strange. You wink at him.

“I thought you’d want to pick up your cars,” says Prokopenko.

He parks just as violently as he drives and you sit up. There’s no white Mitsubishi in the drive, and Kavinsky doesn’t seem like the type to park in a garage, so you assume he’s out. You feel like you're trespassing, despite the way Prokopenko moves with familiarity and confidence, and it gives you a little thrill.

“Your car’s out back. Skov, yours is behind that.” He gestures to an ugly, massive construction next to the house. It might be a shed. It might be a garage. It might be a sign of humanity’s hubris. You are careful not to touch it as you walk around.

Your Rx-7 is a beautiful thing; even now, it makes your heart clench just looking at it. Electric blue and impeccable, you’re surprised and grateful it’s in the same condition you left it. You slide into the front seat, closing your eyes. It smells like leather seats and exhaust and home. When it starts, you feel lighter than you have in weeks.

You hadn’t realized how much it was killing you to be away from your car. 

You saw at the wheel and loop around Proko’s Golf, unable to keep the grin off your face, window rolling down on automatic. He watches you, considering.

Then you’re doing competing loops on Kavinsky’s lawn and tearing up the grass. Jiang joins in halfway, weaving through and nearly wrecking at least half a dozen times before taking off down the street. You and Proko follow. The thrill and pulse of your engine through the gas pedal makes you feel-- something, something similar to the way being a wolf makes you feel. Whole, maybe. Frightening. Alive. 

You can’t do much; it feels a little wrong, anyway, in the daylight, but it’s enough to get your blood up. The three of you end up outside of town, on the side of some backwoods road. The sun hangs low in the sky, painting the Virginia mountains blue and gold. You can almost hear the darkness on its way. 

Prokopenko sits on the hood of his Golf and talks, about nothing in particular really. Jiang leans against his legs, and you sit in the dirt and watch them, occasionally chiming in with something obscene or clever. Proko seems easier around you, now that you’ve started talking. You’re feeling a little easier around him too.

Something feels like it’s missing, though. You try not to focus on it.

Your phone buzzes in the middle of a Jiang story, one you’ve heard before (How My Brother and I Ended Up In The Emergency Room the Fifth Time And Then Got Kicked Out For Vandalism Before We Even Got Stitched Up). You check it; your grandmother is calling.

Your worst, most terrible secret, is that you love your grandmother more than anything else in the world. She was born in Henrietta, and as she often reminds you, she’ll die there. Her parents built their house on the edge of the woods and raised her there, and in turn, she raised your father there. Then, when he and his then-girlfriend got tired of you, your grandmother raised you there too.

“Are you going to answer it?” asks Jiang, leaning over your shoulder. “Tell her thanks for the other night.” You shove him away and stand up. 

“Fuck off,” you say, and wander out of earshot, swiping ANSWER as you do. 

“I’m dying,” your grandmother says, first off.

“That’s not news,” you observe. You watch birds flit through the trees over your head.

“I’m dying,” she continues as if you never spoke, “and still you never call? I could be in a ditch, I could be in the hospital, and you’d never know.”

“Sorry,” you say, your lips matching the smile in her voice.

“You should be.” She sniffs. “I’ve been having bad dreams about you, Skovron.”

“Gran,” you say, and she sniffs again. 

“What? You want me to use your real name? Your true name? When anybody and their mother could be listening?”

“Gran, I don’t think--”

“That’s right! You don’t think! You never think about anyone but yourself, least of all your loving and devoted Grandmother, alone in her house in the woods! Henrietta woods, for--” She continues to rant; you listen to the way she speaks instead of the actual words and stare at the wall. You miss her, sometimes, although you’re not sure if you miss living with her. It’s easier this way; you don’t have to watch her get older, she doesn’t have to watch you fuck up.

After a decent amount of time has passed, you interrupt, but gently. “Are you done?”

“No,” she says. “Dreams. Of the cops hauling your skinny little ass into prison. Do you know what happens to boys like you in prison? You never come out.”

“Dad would get me out.”

“Not even he would be able to, not after you chewed through every other inmate. After your body count goes over twenty they don’t let you out again! And then who would be left to take care of me? You need to be careful, Skovron!”

She doesn’t know, she can’t know, but that still makes you feel a little like puking. “Alright.”

“You’re in trouble, aren’t you?” Or maybe she does know. She’s sharp, your grandmother.

“I’m a teenager, Gran, this is what we do.” 

“It’s different,” she says, in a voice you don’t recognize. “In Henrietta.” 

“I know.”

“Keep your head down, Skovron. Tell those boys of yours as well. Keep your heads down.”

“What--”

“Oh, don’t. I know everything. Head down. Mouth shut. If the police take you in, you call me. Got it?”

“Alright, Gran.”

“Good. I love you. Call more often.”

“I will, Gran.”

She hangs up. Your heart stutters, stops, and starts again. 

“Aw, not gonna tell her you love her?” Jiang says, voice half a croon as he throws his arm around your neck.

“Fuck off,” you say, purposefully leaning into him until he nearly falls and is forced to release you. Prokopenko watches from his spot on the hood of the Golf, mouth amused around a cigarette. You drag Jiang back to him.

.

Days pass. 

“Hey, Jiang,” you say, and he looks up. You’re both sprawled on your bed under the pretense of doing homework. Secretly, you’re waiting for Swan to walk in. He’s been avoiding you this whole time, but it can’t go on much longer. Mostly because you finally gave in and stole his English notes. Jiang’s flipping through one of your textbooks, obviously bored.

“What?” The streetlight visible from the window looks almost unreal. The night makes you itch.

“Tell me a joke.”

“Is it still cannibalism to eat a person if you’re not human?”

“What the fuck?” 

Jiang looks at you. His eyes are dark and you can’t quite tell what he’s feeling. “It’s a riddle.”

“What’s the answer?”

He grins. “I dunno.”

You swear at him, violently. He just goes back to his phone.

“Who’re you texting?”

“None of your fucking business.” He sets his phone down and picks up another book. This one is smaller than the textbook, and from the way Jiang holds it, you can’t read the title. You wait a few minutes, until it seems like he’s getting into it, before interrupting.

“What’re you reading?”

“No one will ever believe me,” he says. “If I said I killed you because you wouldn’t shut up. Not a goddamn person. What did you even take?”

“Sure. But what are you reading?” Swan should move his stash, if he didn’t want you to keep breaking into it. You don’t say that, though. You don’t want to sound as desperate as you feel.

Jiang gives you a look that says you are not as good at deflection as you’re trying to be. “I’m doing research.”

You roll onto your stomach to get a better look at the cover. It doesn’t look like schoolwork. It looks like a paperback from Walmart. “On what?”

“Werewolves.”

“Oh.” You lean forward and pull the book out of his hands. Jiang scrabbles desperately to get it back, but it’s too late. You’ve seen the front. You laugh so hard you almost piss yourself. 

Jiang snatches it back, quickly turning red. “It’s my sister’s,” he says.

“I’m sure you’re learning a lot,” you say, when you can breathe.

“Whatever,” he tosses the book away. Gently, you notice. You start to laugh again, and after a moment, Jiang does too. He is so, so beautiful, and wild. 

You look away; guilt squeezing your throat. You haven’t fucked since before and you don’t have the balls to touch him now. To dare. Not after what you did.

Jiang picks his book up. You count your breaths. The silence feels like murder. You want to crawl out of your skin. Now that’s a real possibility, the thought gives you comfort.

“So, what have you learned?” You force the grin into your voice.

“Well, apparently my cock can grow to three times its size, and my tragic past needs work. Also, where the fuck is our legion of devoted girls? What kind of bodice ripper is this?”

“‘Bodice ripper’,” you almost choke. 

“I could read it out loud.”

“I’ll fucking kill you.”

“Mmm.” 

Jiang stretches, and his shirt rides up. Your mouth goes dry. You can’t, you know you can’t, he doesn’t want you, not after--

Jiang grins at you from under his bangs. 

You crawl down the bed to him, hunger burning in your stomach, and just as you lower your mouth to his throat, Swan arrives. (

He locks eyes with you, standing silent in the doorway, as you suck a bruise into Jiang’s skin. Jiang groans and writhes underneath you. You slip a hand under his shirt.  

“Skov,” says Swan, sharp and angry. Something-- you can’t tell if it’s fear or anger-- shudders its way down your spine. Swan turns, slamming the door behind him. You pull back into yourself, your hands now cold.

Jiang watches you follow Swan. 

“Really?” he says, the unreadable expression back. 

You say nothing and tell yourself you’ll feel guilty later, because you will, and try to put him out of your mind. When the door closes behind you, it makes no sound.

You find Swan outside the dorms, smoking on the curb. The air is the damp of early morning but dawn is still far away. In the distance you can hear the occasional car, but on school grounds, for once, the air is still and quiet. The streetlight makes him look even darker by comparison, like a ghoul, or a shadow, or a ghost. You wonder--

“You smell like wet dog,” he says, with a sneer. 

“What do you want?” you say.

“Your mom to blow me.”

“Swan.”

He glares at you, the tip of the cigarette reflects in his eyes. You feel almost as though you’ve fallen through ice. You watch each other in silence. You can tell he wants to say something but he’s afraid of his own tongue. Swan, you’ve noticed, doesn’t do well with fear. 

Finally, he stands. “Walk with me.”

At night, Henrietta feels poisonous. At night, you think you might learn to love the darkness. Swan fits in the shadows perfectly, like he was made for them, and you think about how he was born here. It’s something you envy about him, something that makes him singular. Every other Aglionby boy is imported. Most are from Virginia, but none are from Henrietta, and that makes all the difference.

Swan takes you through campus, over the fence at the edge, and into the sparse trees. It’s almost woods, but you hear the freeway close by, and see the lights from town. A park, or an empty lot, some place forgotten in time.  

Only then does Swan turn to face you. You always forget how much taller he is, how much  _ more.  _ You wonder if he realises it.

“Shit, dude,” you say, because you can see his eyes finally. His pupils are blown wide. He grins just as wide, something cruel in it. You are uncomfortably turned on.

“We match,” he says. You can’t stop staring at his mouth. You wonder if you were so horny before you were a werewolf. You think you were.

“Who’d you get it from?”

“Kavinsky.”

Your vision whites out. You don’t want to consider Swan and Kavinsky in the same thought. The idea of them together, speaking, with Kavinsky’s hot dead eyes and Swan’s terrible cold ones, looking at each other. Looking at you. 

This kind of reaction is not normal.

“What the fuck are you playing at?” and you’re suddenly spitting mad, grabbing at Swan’s shirt and pushing him back. He pushes you off, his hands curling into fists.

“What’s it to you?” He has never looked so ugly, his face screwed up in hate or something similar.

“You know what he is, what he did,” you say, tripping over the words. You’re shaking.

“What you are. What you want,” Swan echoes, mocking.

“What  _ you _ want,” you say. “It’s pathetic, following me around like you’re jealous, telling everyone how much you despise Kavinsky when really you just want his cock in your--”

“That’s _ you _ , you fucking piece of shit. Drooling all over him, all over fucking Jiang, all over me--”

You hit him, and then he’s on you, punching you like he’s practiced for it. You go down but manage to drag him with you. You can feel your knuckles split, can taste the blood in your mouth and you’re not sure who it belongs to, and then just as quick he’s moving back, pinning your arms above your head.

He stares at you, his nose bleeding sluggishly. It drips onto your chin.

“Get off,” you say, slurring. He sneers at you, and you can see he’s still angry. “Or hit me again. I don’t fucking care.”

You think, for a half second, that he might-- but then he’s gone, staggering to his feet. You watch him from the ground. There’s something under your skin, growling to get out. You wonder if he can see it.

You watch each other. Behind the anger, behind the rage and the wolf and the hurt, you know that if you keep fighting like this, one of you will kill the other. You don’t think you could handle that.

So you sit up, turn away, and dig out your phone.

“Your notes are on your desk,” you say, and even to your own ears your voice sounds hollow. You don’t hear him go, but when you chance a look up, he’s gone.

Jiang doesn’t answer, but you knew he wouldn’t. Not after you left him to go after Swan. You scroll through your contacts, thinking. There’s one number you don’t recognize, one that you know you never saved. Someone else must have. Under ‘LEADER OF THE PACK’. You check the ringtone and don’t know if you should laugh.

You call it.

.

You’re shivering by the time Kavinsky shows up. He looks dangerous behind the dark of the window, wearing his stupid fucking sunglasses even though it’s got to be early morning by now. Getting in is a relief anyway.

“So,” he says, around a piece of gum. “Fight with your boyfriend?” He laughs at his own joke. You hate him a little.

“Stay away from Swan.”

“Woah. Woah. Swan?” He glances at you, raising his eyebrows so you can see them over his sunglasses. “You know Swan?”

You look at him, because you know he already knew. You’re roommates, there’s no way he couldn’t have known. 

“Fair enough,” he says, turning back to the road just in time to keep from swerving into someone’s mailbox.

“Don’t talk to him.”

“Jealous already? Baby, you hardly know me.”

“Fuck off.” 

He laughs. “That’s not a nice thing to say to the guy offering you a bed.” Something about the way he says it makes your pulse speed up.

“You owe me,” you say, instead of anything else. Instead of questions. No one knows shit about Joseph Kavinsky, except that he will hurt you. 

“Man, is that how you see it?” he says, and abruptly pulls over. “Get out.”

You consider, briefly, apologising, but you don’t have it in you. You get out, not looking at him, not really looking at anything. 

Then Kavinsky gets out as well, and he stares at you over the hood of his white Mitsubishi. In the dark of the night, you can’t tell what he’s about to do until it’s almost over.

The change of skin looks painful, ugly, terrifying. You can’t look away. You watch his bones crack apart and when he’s done, a white wolf looks at you with dead eyes.

You take a step back, and then there’s a boy instead, Kavinsky, grinning down at you. You can barely see his face; he doesn’t look real.

“I found you,” he says. “You were already halfway gone, man. Never even bit but you smelled like it, you moved like it, and you didn’t know a fucking thing about yourself. A goddamn waste. I didn’t create you, but I made you, get me?”

You do; you want him, so badly, to be telling you the truth.

“I gave you a fucking gift,” he says. “Hand me my shirt, will you?”

“You killed someone. We killed someone,” you don’t know why you say it, except that you have to know. You want it all laid out for you, to pick up and rip apart.

“Nah,” he says. “We ate someone. We killed a deer, and a stray dog, but we only found the kid after something else got them. Death throes when we happened on the scene, then bam, buffet.”

This feels wrong; you hadn’t even questioned it before. Werewolves are monsters and monsters hunt down and kill people. “Wolves aren’t scavengers,” you say.

“Werewolves are,” he says. Your own heart is tripping you up, pounding too hard to listen to K’s; you can’t tell if he’s lying.

You don’t talk again until you’re pulling into his driveway. 

“Why?” you say, and you don’t know how to explain what you’re asking. The depth is beyond you; your hands are shaking from your come-down. 

In answer, K makes two colorful little pills appear in the palm of his hand. He holds them out to you.

You pick them up but you don’t take them. Not yet. Not yet. 

“Why?” you say again. “Why me?” He turns the car off.

“I’ll show you.”

You follow him inside, your heart beating wildly against your ribs. You haven’t been alone with Kavinsky since he lied to you, and now you’re in his house. The hallways are dark and empty; you wonder if anyone else is there, or if he lives in this towering place by himself, but it doesn’t seem messy enough for that. 

You can tell when you’re getting close to his room because there’s shit all over the floor. Like dirty boxers. A scattering of empty beer bottles. Someone’s bra. A pizza box.  Then you get to his room and it’s bad, but you’re not repulsed like you know you should be. Kavinsky closes the door behind you.

“Hit me,” he says, grinning.

“What?”

“Fucking hit me, you deaf?” 

You don’t need to be asked again. You study him, staring in the way you know is terrifying. Then, just when the silence is beginning to stretch, you lunge at him. Quicker than you can catch, he grabs your outstretched arm and dodges to the side, twisting your arm behind you and shoving you into the door. You push back, rage making it difficult to see, difficult to think.

You see Swan’s hatred, you see Jiang’s hurt, you see your own helplessness and something inside you slips. You don’t even know what you’re doing before you’re a wolf, the rage and the desperation giving you strength. You rip and snarl and bite, letting the bloodlust blind you.

When you can think clearly again, you’re naked, breathing hard, collapsed on top of Kavinsky. His white fur is caught in your teeth; blood pours down your side from where he’s bitten too deep. He pushes you back and sits up. You watch black bruises form along his stomach and try to catch your breath.

Blood trickles down the side of your face, even as the cut closes itself. You watch as his breathing evens out, as the black bruises bloom, then fade, just as soon as they’d appeared. 

“Fuck,” you say, following the marks on his chest up. His mouth is red and smirking. There’s blood in his teeth. He’s looking at you in a way that makes you want to fidget, but you don’t dare move. Slowly, he reaches out, and smears the blood along your jaw with his thumb.

Then you’re kissing him, hard and violent, his hands pulling at your hair and ripping at your shoulders. You bite his jaw, his neck, running your hands over his stomach and his hips. Heat ripples through your skin everywhere he touches, like a bruise, like a burn. You’re suddenly aware how hard you are and you can smell how turned on his is, can smell his sweat and his cock, and it’s better than anything you’ve fantasized about.

His hands push you down, and you go easily, biting and sucking as you go. You work at his thighs until he’s twitching and only then do you take him into your mouth. His cock is heavy on your tongue and feels bigger than you expected, and you let him push you down, choking you.

It feels like everything you’ve been waiting for, ever since Jiang met your eyes over that textbook, ever since you woke up in the woods covered in blood. Your whole body aches and you’re so hard that even thinking about touching yourself makes you want to come. You let yourself drink in the smell of blood and sweat and sex and believe that this is all there is in the world. It makes it easier.

Kavinsky pulls your hair and groans, deep and low. You’re drooling around him, your mouth stretched wide, and his hips jerk up. You let him fuck your mouth and try not to think about him touching you, or how it would feel if he forced you onto your hands and knees and made you take it that way. Swan’s words ring in your ears, and fuck, it just makes you harder.

His grip tightens and that’s the only warning you get before he comes. You pull back, coughing, and catch some on your face. Kavinsky looks down at you like he doesn’t recognize you. You stare back, and wonder what you look like. You can only hope you look as hungry as you feel. 

Then he grabs you by the throat and pushes you onto your back, biting at your jaw. You wonder if he likes the taste of himself. Then he presses his hips down, trapping your cock against his thigh, and you can’t think at all, you’re just rutting against him like a dog. You come embarrassingly fast, but he doesn’t stop touching you.

You stay like that for a while, rocking against each other, biting and pulling like you’re trying to find the wolves under each other’s skin. You don’t notice the sun rising, or the sound of someone else moving about the house, until Kavinsky’s door is being flung open.

You try to flinch away, instinct taking over, but Kavinsky holds you in place.

“Joseph,” says Joseph Kavinsky’s mother, staring down at you with glazed eyes. “You have school soon.” If she’s surprised to find him naked and bloody, it doesn’t show.

“Get out,” he says, just as coldly as he ordered you. “Get out, you fucking bitch, before I make you.”

She closes the door, slowly, still staring. Kavinsky’s already moving away, grabbing clothes off the floor as he cusses her out. It’s almost melodic, the way he swears. You stare up at the ceiling, just listening, before he kicks you hard in the ribs and makes you get up.

Kavinsky drives you back to Aglionby. You don’t have any words left after the night before and he doesn’t seem to care. He blasts music loud enough you’re sure it wakes everyone you drive past. You get to school more or less on time.You half consider skipping, but you can’t afford to miss any more time this early in the year.

Kavinsky. You feel a lot like you did when you first realized you’d eaten that girl; like you’ve gotten away with something so huge there’s no way it won’t destroy you in the end. You wait; Kavinsky smokes, just to be sure he’ll be late.

He looks you up and down, something unreadable in his eyes. Prokopenko told you about the pack bonds, but you don’t know if you believe him, much less how to manipulate them. The anger you feel, burning low in your chest, could be his or your own, or anyone else’s. It feels too familiar.

Kavinsky gets halfway through his cigarette before he tosses it to the ground.

“See you later,” he says, and he’s gone.

It’s a long day. Jiang isn’t speaking to you and Swan won’t even look at you. Prokopenko does, something considering in his gaze, and you’re so grateful for it, you let him copy your Chem homework. The whole time, you can feel Kavinsky’s touch lingering on your skin like a brand. You desperately want to destroy something.

“Almost,” says Prokopenko, when class is out. You wonder if he was reading your thoughts, or-- 

“Pack party,” he says, as if clarifying. “K’s tomorrow.” Then he grins, and your blood burns in your veins, and he’s gone too. 


	3. Chapter 3

You’re in the woods again; it’s starting to feel like a second home. You’re alone, and you ache, howling as you pace through the trees. Your breath burns in your lungs but you keep going. Pine needles like broken glass dig into the shredded pads of your paws. There are rules here, you know them without having been told, and your job is to run. 

You think you’re looking for someone, or something, but you can’t remember. You can’t remember how you came to be here. Or how to escape. Trees tower over you, silhouetted against the dusk sky. A thousand dark shapes play in your peripheral vision but when you turn to snap at them, nothing’s there. You can’t stop.

You think you hear something behind you. You keep running, but it’s inevitable, you know it is, you’re just going through the motions. When it catches you, it’s going to kill you. The wolf has to kill the girl and run from the huntsman, that’s just how it works.

You stumble over a root, pain shooting up to your shoulder. This is the end, your fatal flaw; you never had a chance to win and now you’re losing. Your anger is useless. 

The thing chasing you is no longer chasing you; it’s there, it’s almost on you, and then you’re awake.

Your heart beats wildly and sweat makes your clothes stick to your skin. Your arm aches. You want to hit something.

You sit up and glance over but no, Swan’s bed is still empty. 

.

Then there is the party.

You receive an official invite over Facebook, complete with terrible photoshopped picture of Prokopenko pretending to fuck the moon. Comic sans reads “PARTY ANIMALS”. It’s creative, you decide, squinting, if also horrific. You hope someone finds it in ten years and uses it to ruin his life. 

You click ‘Attending’; it feels a little redundant.

You and Jiang arrive at Kavinsky’s house on Friday at almost the exact same time. He still isn’t talking to you, and you think that’s going to make the next few hours unbearably awkward. What does he fucking wants from you, an apology? You’re not like that, the two of you, and if he didn’t know that before then it’s a good thing he’s learning.

You wish he’d look at you, though. You won’t apologize but maybe you could just blow him. 

You force yourself to get out of your car and follow Jiang to the front door. He doesn’t seem to notice. 

Swan’s been ignoring you too, although he goes to greater lengths. Something-- you tell yourself it’s the moon because that’s what you want to believe--itches under your skin when you wonder where he’s been spending his nights, because he hasn’t been back in a while. You see him at school, sometimes, but never for more than a second.

You don’t know if you’ve ever felt this angry. You feel sick. You feel like you shouldn’t have come. You just want--

Jiang knocks on K’s door and you wonder if his mom is home. 

Prokopenko answers the door, holding a dog collar. It seems like an auspicious beginning to the night. 

“Got the stuff?” he asks.

Jiang holds up the Walmart bag. 

“Get in.” Proko holds the door open for you both, and to get inside you have to brush past him. His skin smells inexplicably sweet; the moon, not yet risen, prickles under your skin. 

For some reason, you expect Kavinsky to be waiting inside but he’s nowhere in sight, even when you wander down in the direction you think his room is. You shoot a glance at Prokopenko, who pretends not to see. The awkwardness has begun. 

The three of you somehow end up in the basement home theater, which you don’t remember at all from your past visits, but Proko seems to know very well. He messes with the equipment until a youtube playlist starts, obnoxiously loud. You sort of hover in the doorway, a million excuses flooding your head but never quite making it out your mouth. Almost, you think, I’ll give it another ten minutes and if it’s not any better then--

Jiang sets his mystery bag out on the floor and pulls out a few bottles. You think maybe tonight won’t be so bad. Or at least, you’ll be too wasted to care. 

“Where’s K?” asks Jiang, as Prokopenko comes to inspect the goods. He’s put the dog collar down, somewhere, when you weren’t paying attention.

Because Jiang isn’t you, Proko answers. “He’ll be here soon.”

The hate coiled in your chest gets a little bit tighter, a little bit more present.

Then, like he hasn’t been ignoring you all week, Jiang twists and hands you a bottle of truly disgusting cheap vodka.

“Might as well get comfortable,” he says, and he grins at you, and you can’t fucking help the way it makes you-- not calmer, but better, maybe. More real. “Oh-- also, here.” 

He pulls out a small, bloodstained ziploc bag full of human teeth and throws it at you. “I didn’t know if you like, wanted these back or not.” You just barely manage to catch it.

“Uh,” you say, staring down at the teeth. Your teeth. The teeth you left behind on his carpet, that Jiang, for some reason, decided to pick up and return to you. 

“I didn’t want my mom to find them,” he says, and you nod, even though that might be weirder. You’re not really sure what to do with them. What if you--

“Hey,” you say, and let yourself smile slow, the one you know makes you look good. “Do you think Kavinsky would freak out if we hid these in his room?”

Jiang laughs, but Prokopenko isn’t impressed.

“You don’t think he’s ever lost teeth during a transformation?” he asks. “Or won't be able to smell you on them?”

“Come on man,” you say, fluttering your eyelashes at him. He doesn’t so much as crack a smile. You’re going to have to try harder. “In his cereal? Just, bam, fucking human teeth instead of Lucky Charms or whatever.” 

“Maybe,” says Prokopenko, like he means to say  _ no. _ “If I thought he ever ate while he was human.”

“K doesn’t eat?” says Jiang, sounding-- amused. You think you’re getting better at reading him. 

“Have you ever seen him do it? Fuck, have you ever seen him eat as a wolf?” says Prokopenko. He’s ignoring you again, kneeling to compare labels on two Jiang’s purchases. 

“Maybe he’s not real,” you say, just to say something. Prokopenko looks up, something hard and almost angry to the set of his shoulders. There are butterflies in your stomach. 

It’s Jiang who replies, though. “Fuck, dude, what if we put them like, in his clothes? In his pockets or whatever. See how long it takes him to notice.” 

“Let’s do it,” you say, tossing him back the teeth. 

Jiang leads the way down the hall and you try not to think about how he knows exactly where to find Kavinsky’s bedroom. You have a brief debate about whether to hide the teeth in his jeans or his school slacks (slacks win) and somehow that leads to going through his clothes. 

“This is the ugliest shirt I’ve ever seen,” says Jiang, holding it up to the dim light. You squint at it, and think you agree.

“I got that for him,” says Prokopenko, voice warning, but he’s not looking at Jiang the same way he was looking at you. 

“It’s a treasure,” you tell him. The smile drops out of his eyes. Fuck, maybe you should offer him a blowjob instead of Jiang.

“It is,” says Jiang, agreeably. “I’m going to wear it.” And he strips off, tossing his shirt somewhere behind him, unconcerned. You like the way his tattoos look, spread across his chest like they’re daring you to touch. 

Prokopenko cackles, although at Jiang or at the presumably ridiculous way you’re staring, you can’t tell. (The shirt looks just as stupid on Jiang as you imagine it looks on Kavinsky. You still can’t tear your eyes away.)

“I didn’t know it was possible for you to look like more of a douchebag than you already do,” you say, and Jiang launches himself at you. Neither of you are really looking to hurt the other- at least, you’re not. It’s too early in the night for that. You just jab and pull and laugh until you get him in a headlock and he cries off. Jiang’s handsy even when he’s sober, so you don’t pay any attention to it, but, after, you see Prokopenko staring at you.

“If the apocalypse happens,” you tell him, because you have to say something. “It’s me and you against scarecrow boy here. We can totally take him.”

“Fucking try it,” Jiang says, shoving you. “Me and Proko could kick your ass.”

“I could crush both of you,” says Prokopenko, and he grins. You try not to delight in it, to not feel like you’ve won something, passed some test. 

“If you forced me and Skov to team up, you wouldn’t stand a chance,” says Jiang. “Skov fights mean, and I can run like, really fast. You’d never catch me.”

“Asshole,” you say, and that’s it. The three of you wander through the house, drinking and arguing and touching marvelous things that don’t belong to you. There’s only one locked door, and when you try it, Proko stops you.

“That’s my room,” he says, laying to rest half a dozen rumors and confirming at least a dozen more. You keep walking.

You end up in the home theater for a while, looking up stupid shit on youtube, and then it’s back to Kavinsky’s room. Jiang jumps on the bed to see what sort of shit falls out. You find half a candy bar under the bed and dare Proko to eat it. He eats part of it, and then he and Jiang hold you down and try to make you eat the rest. You escape by sheer luck. 

The whole of it’s not what you were expecting. It’s a little weird, a little rough, a little too anticipatory to be comfortable, but it’s not bad. You’re enjoying yourself.

Then Prokopenko freezes. You and Jiang copy him.

"What?" says Jiang.

"Werewolf lesson number one," says Prokopenko. "Listen."

You do. Overhead, you think you hear something creak. Kavinsky, it has to be. Then there's another, unhurried, deliberate step and you're sure. His mother creeps, doesn’t step.

"I don't get it," says Jiang. Prokopenko looks at you; you nod. His eyes flick to the closet, then back to Jiang, the hint of a smile on his lips.

You grin wide.

You push, Proko pulls, the three of you cramming into the closet. Jiang yelps; too late, you slap a hand over his mouth. The door to the closet clicks shut behind you, barely audible over Jiang's rapid heartbeat in your ear. You're like fish in a can, all mixed and pressed together.

“Well,” says Kavinsky’s voice, distant. “Someone’s been sitting in my chair.” You can feel Jiang snicker against your hand. Footsteps sound, getting closer. 

“Someone’s been sleeping in my bed,” he continues. The floor creaks under his weight. You can feel Proko’s wild pulse where you’re crushed together. Jiang is actually shaking with laughter, and you try to shush him without making a sound, which makes him shake harder.

“Someone’s been eating my--” the door of the closet is flung open and the three of you almost fall out, stumbling into each other and laughing, finally. Kavinsky stands and watches, a single eyebrow raised, mouth twisted into something like humor.

“Well, someone’s been eating something,” he says and leers at the group of you. Prokopenko curls an arm around your middle, catching you easily. He pulls you into him, looking at Kavinsky over the top of your head, his hand snaking under your hoodie. Jiang’s still pressed close to you. You feel hot all over.

“Skov started it,” says Prokopenko. Kavinsky’s leer intensifies.

“Fuck off,” you say, elbowing him in the side, and the tension dissolves. Prokopenko lets you go, and you stumble into Jiang, purposefully knocking him into the door. He shoves you back. Everything is absolutely normal.

"Speaking of eating," says Jiang. "I'm fucking dying. Do you have any food in this house?"

Prokopenko scoffs.

“Where the fuck do you think you are?” says Kavinsky, which is the same as saying no. 

You unleash yourselves upon the town, after a lengthy argument about what you all want. It turns out to be redundant, as all of Henrietta's fast food joints are on the same side of town, none more than five minutes apart.

The roads are dark, most of the locals staying in bed, like the boring fucks they are. You roar down mainstreet like it’s a drag strip.

Jiang and Kavinsky hit up the Burger King. Prokopenko heads for Taco Bell. You go for Wendy's, Jiang's jeers trailing you.

You're on your way back, burger in one hand, when sirens stop you cold. You're barely even speeding, and part of you screams that you could lose them if you floored it, but your body reacts without input from your brain and you pull over.

You tend to get a lot of shit from the police; your father pays them off like all the others, but they still hate you. That's fine. You hate them too.

The cop knocks on your window. You turn your radio off and press the down button. The cop leans in.

He looks like a stereotype of a cop, all ruddy face and pissy, watery eyes. You find yourself checking his shirt for donut crumbs. Sometimes you wish the universe would have a little imagination.

"You know why I pulled you over, son?"

You look at him, and the moment stretches just a little too far before you remember that you can't actually afford to be a bastard right now.

"No," you say. On the road next to you, three familiar cars speed past in quick succession. The others. How fucking mortifying. 

"I see you've got a Wendy's bag there," says the cop, shining his flashlight at your food.

"I'm pretty sure that's not illegal." 

The cop just stares.

"I got a report that someone driving a car of this description was harassing the employees there. Do you have anything to say to that?" He shines the flashlight directly into your face.

This isn't the most bullshit reason you've been pulled over, but it's close. Fucking Henrietta hillbillies. 

“I didn’t think ordering a burger counted as harassment,” you say. “But I’m not really into current events.”

“You been drinkin’, son?” He says it like he already knows the answer, or doesn’t care. The truth is immaterial, he’s just following the script to the part where he gets to make your life worse. 

You're about to tell him where he can shove his flashlight when a white Mitsubishi pulls up next to you, driving on the wrong side of the road..

"Hey Officer, there a problem?" says Kavinsky. He’s stopped in the middle of the road, so close he doesn’t have to raise his voice to be heard.

"Excuse me?" says the cop. There’s not a chance he misheard; there’s not a chance he doesn’t recognize Kavinsky. Your grandmother would probably be disappointed in you for the way delight curls in your chest. 

Jiang drives by as well, then jerks to a stop in front of your RX-7. Prokopenko slowly rolls up behind, boxing the cop in. 

You watch him put a hand on his gun. Kavinsky raises his eyebrows over his shades. 

"No problem, right, man?" drawls Jiang, hanging halfway out his window.

"I don't think--"

"Aw, don't say that." Jiang's grinning, manic, and you think he and Kavinsky got something more than burgers and fries. You also think, if one of you is going to get shot, it'll be him.

You can't stop the snarl that thought causes. The cop looks at you. 

"Man, you alright?" Kavinsky drawls, and the cop switches directions. He’s sweating, you can smell it.

“No problem,” the cop agrees. Then he straightens up, puts his flashlight into his pocket, and gets into his car. 

Jiang whoops and races off, blatantly ignoring the speed limit. You follow him before the cop can change his mind. 

You can’t believe how fucking  _ easy _ that was. A whole realm of possibilities opens in front of you. You feel drunk with companionship; you might actually just be drunk.

You pass and almost-race each other, flickering your lights, getting close like a game of tag no one actually wants to win, terrifying anyone with the misfortune to share the road. The lights on your dash are low, everything dark and streamlined, smelling like gasoline and beer and you. When you sleep, when you aren’t having nightmares, this is what you dream about. Consuming length after length of headlight-illuminated street, the danger and the power and the desire for more all rolling around your chest, getting into your pulse just under the hard bass from your stereo.

At one point, you catch a glimpse of Kavinsky leaning half out his window, sunglasses on despite the darkness around you, wearing a savage smile. Something close to fury shoots straight through your veins and leaves your mouth dry. 

You have a pair of sunglasses sitting on your dashboard. You put them on just to make driving more interesting.

You find the campground mostly on accident. It's close enough to Henrietta that you could have run, if you were wearing a different skin. It's too dark to see much but you break in anyway, Prokopenko snapping the padlock on the gate with one irritated pull. 

"Is that a werewolf thing?" you ask, driving slowly past. Gravel crunches under your wheels.

Prokopenko laughs. "What else would it be?"

You just cruise past, grinning. You don't say that, at this point, nothing would surprise you.

No one’s around, or if they are, they’re staying quiet. The four of you stop in the center, music warring from several stereos, different basslines vying for attention, echoing around the trees. It’s different than your usual hangouts; the sound seems-- not louder, but wider. More desperate to fill the space. You note, somewhat smugly, that yours is winning, and after a while Jiang and Kavinsky give up and shut theirs off. Kavinsky does a line off Proko’s hood and then he’s stripping off more than his clothes. 

You join him, all of you, racing through the trees, ambushing each other, relishing in the new ways you can move.

You're the quickest and you revel in it, nipping at tails and then dashing away. You let them hunt you for a few laps then turn, rolling Jiang into Prokopenko and just barely avoiding Kavinsky's shoulder. Then it's on, all of you after Jiang. 

You don't try as hard as you could. 

You forget, for just a moment, that anything else exists. Just a moment.

After a while, when your paws start to ache, Prokopenko catches your eye and you both pull back, slipping and stumbling back into humanity and the parking lot. You scavenge Kavinsky’s jeans (too long for you, but whatever) and your own shirt. Prokopenko laughs. You crawl onto the hood of your Mazda, playlist more subdued, and Proko settles in next to you. After a while, Kavinsky chases Jiang back, running him around your cars.

You share a shitty beer you found in his Golf’s hatch, passing it back and forth, and watch Jiang make a total asshole of himself, just distant enough to feel separate. The moon’s high overhead, signifying more than it used to. It’s the perfect atmosphere for late night confessions.

"I hate him sometimes," says Prokopenko. You both watch Kavinsky easily trip Jiang, then circle him. Jiang seems delighted, writhing in the dirt and snapping at Kavinsky's heels. They don’t seem to be paying attention to the two of you, sitting aside. 

"Yeah?"

"Kavinsky," says Prokopenko. "He's a fucking asshole. We used to be like--" he cuts himself off. A few moments pass. It's not that he's struggling for words. You think maybe there isn't a word for what Kavinsky is to him, or what they used to be together.

"I get that," you say, cautious, in case you're reading him wrong.

Prokopenko just nods. "You'll see what I mean, anyway. You're new now; he likes new shit, but he'll get over you once he sees something else. Or someone."

You try not to let it touch you, the worn note in his voice, but it does anyway. You can feel his misery burrowing under your skin like a parasite and you feel like you can't breathe. 

"Okay," you say, for lack of anything else.

Prokopenko looks at you. He looks like a regular boy under the moonlight. It's funny, almost-- you think it tends to make most people seem otherworldly. 

"He'll still be around," he says it almost like an apology. "It'll just be different. And you'll still have Jiang. And me." 

“Okay.” You don't have it in you to tell him how impermanent this all feels. Fuck, just hours before, Proko was looking at you like he wanted to crush you under the wheels of his Golf. 

Maybe he gets it anyway, because he's leaning into you suddenly, pushing you flat onto your back. One hand is on your stomach, pushing under your shirt, and the other is just under your collarbone.

"Werewolf 101," he says. "Lesson two. Close your eyes."

You squint at him. He presses harder with the hand on your chest. You wonder what he thinks of the rapid heartbeat you know he can feel.

"Skov," he says. His hand rubs slow over your abdomen. You close your eyes. 

You wonder what would happen if you fucked him too. If Jiang would hate you more, if Kavinsky would stop looking at you, if Swan would finally lose it and just beat your head in. Maybe none of them would ever find out; you've never heard of Prokopenko fucking around with guys (besides the token whispers about him and Kavinsky, which, well, Kavinsky) but you can feel his eyes on you now, you have all night, so maybe he just doesn't kiss and tell. Part of you wants to find out. The rest of you knows what a shitty idea it is.

His second hand joins his first on your stomach, fingers stretching out over your bare skin, and you inhale sharply. He presses steadily, almost kneading, just letting you feel him.

You'll never forgive yourself if you let your dick fuck this up, this magic that you're carving a space for yourself in. Still, you lean into the touch and you know that if he presses you for anything, you'll give it to him.

He doesn't ask. He just touches you, gradually moving up, and you feel the bass through your spine and the stereo screams out curses and proclamations and promises you all that you're kings of the street. Your head spirals away; your body melts.

"Wolves need touch," says Prokopenko, after a while. It doesn't bring you all the way back, just enough to be casually aware of your surroundings again. He's pushed your shirt up to your neck but you don't feel cold. "People do too, fucking Biology basics, but it's different with us. You need your pack to be with you, or you'll get fucked up and go crazy."

"Okay," you say, trying not to sound as sluggish as you feel. "Pack equals drugs. Got it."

Prokopenko laughs a little. "Close enough." He rubs little circles over your ribs. You would probably let him cut you open and take your kidneys to sell on the black market if he wanted. You'd even hold the cooler for him.

"What the fuck are you doing to Skov?" says Jiang, sounding out of breath. You don't even open your eyes. 

"Hop up next to him and I'll show you."

"Oh, please, do me too," says Kavinsky, voice falsetto. You can hear the unpleasant expression he must be making. Your mouth curves into a smile without consulting the rest of you.

Then you're being crowded from two sides. You just barely open your eyes to check who's who-- Jiang presses his face into your left shoulder. At some point he lost his shirt (or rather, Kavinsky’s borrowed shirt), so it's easy for Prokopenko to dig his fingers into the meat of his back and press.

You can feel Jiang react to the touch, going boneless against you.

You glance to your other side, where you can feel Kavinsky pressed against your side. He's leaning up, watching Jiang react, something possessive in his face.

He catches you looking. You will yourself not to react.

"Good job with this one," he says, sunglasses reflecting only darkness. 

"He could be worse," you allow.

"Bite me," says Jiang, half a groan. "Oh, wait--"

"Don't tempt me," says Kavinsky, leaning over you, snapping his teeth. Jiang mock-growls. Proko laughs and shoves Kavinsky away. 

When Prokopenko puts a hand on him, Kavinsky arches into it, laughing when Proko pushes him back down with the air of someone disciplining a new puppy.

It feels like the start of something blinding and fast and delicious, like  _ the start _ . You close your eyes and try to memorize the feeling.

Then the woods explode.

"Holy shi--"

You roll off, hitting the ground hard, your ears already ringing. Jiang gets dragged down with you and his elbow lands a solid blow to your eye.

**GET OUT** screams the forest.

"What the fuck," says Jiang. You look up, blinking thickly; you don't think it was so dark a few moment ago. The air is thrumming with something vaguely familiar.

**GET OUT** screams the forest again. **GET OUT GET OUT GETOUTGETOUT**

Your skin feels too small for all the blood inside you. The need to run rises in your throat.

Kavinsky is swearing back at the forest, every syllable dripping with hate. Prokopenko looks like a mad dog, all snarls and dripping jaws. Jiang seems a few seconds behind, still processing.

Then the leaves shake and thunder rolls and someone appears in the shadow of the tallest tree. It's a dramatic entrance. You don't need to wonder what impression the creature is trying to make.

Your chest pounds. Your nightmare. The huntsman.

"We have to go," you say, grabbing Jiang's arm and pulling him up.

"Fuck this," Kavinsky agrees. 

You run. 

The huntsman chases. It's exactly like your dream, except the desperate sounds around you-- heavy breathing, heavy footfalls, hissed curses and snapping undergrowth-- belong to your pack, mostly. The fear feels like it’s going to rot you from the inside out. It's only a little unlike running from a party after the cops show up.

Jiang trips and goes down hard, his arm ripping out of your grip. You don't take the time to make a decision; you turn back before he's hit the ground. 

The huntsman bears down on you both, even as Jiang scrambles back to his feet. It's going to kill you. It's going to kill Jiang.

You can't fight the fear, but you can act through it. You haven't stopped moving and you don't try. You slam into the huntsman, throwing it off course and away from your pack. You only touch for a moment, but it's--

(you’re choking on your own misery, you  **KILLED HERE,** your blood is boiling out of your head, your skin is splitting apart at the seams, you’re nothing, you’re nothing, there’s nothing, you're  **EVIL)**

\--it's overwhelming. 

The huntsman seems as dazed as you, stumbling over its own feet. You snarl, once, flecks of spit flying dripping down. You hope you look more menacing than disgusting. The huntsman doesn’t move closer. You turn again and run.

You meet the others back at the parking lot, clustered around your cars like they’re taking shelter in the normalcy of it. They waited; your heart grows three sizes.

“Christ,” says Jiang, when he sees you. “What took you so fucking long?”

“I thought you were fucking dead,” says Kavinsky.

“Let’s go,” says Prokopenko. “Hurry the fuck up.”

"I thought you said we didn't kill anyone," you say to Kavinsky's retreating back. “ _ Kavinsky.”  _ He doesn't seem to hear. 

.

Jiang follows you back to your dorm. Adrenaline has you shaking the whole time, or maybe it's something else. Before you parted ways, Proko gave you something for the shock. You can still feel his hands tracing over your chest. 

"What's up?" you say, getting out of your car. Your legs hold you up, but only out of sheer determination. 

Then Jiang's got his elbow to your throat, throwing you onto the hood of your car. You're so surprised you don't even react. Then your mind is off, thinking magical possession, thinking curses and exorcisms and how you're not even sure if you know any Catholics. 

"Jiang--" you say, voice half breath, sounding crushed. He’s basically sitting on you, throwing his whole weight behind his arm.

"What were you talking about with Prokopenko?," he says, face unreadable, voice hard.

"What the fuck? We weren't talking about--"

"Don't fucking lie," he says. "What did you tell him?"

"Jealousy's a shit look on you."

"Skov."

"How good you suck dick," you reply, and he shifts just enough to knee you hard in the stomach. Bright spots play across your vision. 

"What the fuck do you think you’re doing?" he asks.

“Jiang,” you say, gasping and leaning hard into him. “What are  _ you _ doing?”

Like you took a pickaxe to his defenses, the cold melts right out of his eyes, leaving behind a wide grin. Familiar and inviting, a little bit dangerous. Jiang.

"Skov," he says, again, and you really wish you knew what was going on.

Then he's pushing you further up, hands going from your neck down, sliding against your chest. He crawls up over you, kneeing your legs apart, pulling you close.

“I wasn’t sure but-- Christ, Skov, you’d just let me do anything, wouldn’t you?” He says, and your gut twists sharp and hot. You didn’t think, of all people, you’d hear Jiang say that to you. Not that you’re complaining. 

“I don’t--” you say, and he hushes you, biting your shoulder hard. It stings and you jerk up against him, breathing through your mouth. 

You're really glad you parked in the shadows. You don't care if anyone sees, but you don't want to be interrupted. 

He doesn't kiss you, doesn't reach for your jeans, just bites and presses up against you. You get your hands tangled in his hair and pull, but he won't move, won't change direction, just keeps touching you. 

His shirt-- his own this time-- comes off, and you can't help the way you arch into him. He's hard against your thigh, but he's not trying to get off. 

In the scant light, you can make out bruises on his neck, over his collarbone, that you don't remember having seen before. You don't know where he found the time to get fucked between the huntsman and now.

"Be good," he says, with a final pull at your ear, and then he's gone. 

His shirt--Kavinsky’s shirt-- is damp cotton in your hands, well made and mistreated.  It smells like him, and like sweat. You wonder what the social protocol is for returning it. Maybe you just won't. 

You're shaking worse than before. 


	4. Chapter 4

You wake up on your back, feeling like a car crash victim. You weren't really expecting much else. 

It might still be dark out, or maybe you've slept all day, or maybe there's something over your eyes. You try to sit up and yep-- t-shirt. It falls away and the sun presses in all around. Pain, everywhere. You throw your hands over your eyes. Drool is crusted at the corner of your mouth. Your throat feels shredded.

Thank god it's Saturday. 

You pull your hands away from your face in increments. Light creeps in, kinder this time, and you blink upwards.

Swan is watching you, too close, like he’s been waiting. You jerk away, hitting your head against the wall in your haste.

“We should probably talk,” he says.

"How long have you been fucking staring at me?" you say, hand pressed against your throbbing skull.

Swan doesn't look even a little embarrassed. You hate him a little bit more.

"Not long," he says. "You always get quiet right before you wake up."

"Am I not quiet when I'm sleeping?"

"No." He says it like it's a well known fact. You really wish the huntsman had murdered you.

Swan's fully dressed, like he's been up for a while. You don't remember him being in when you crashed last night. He hasn't been near you since your argument. 

"Do I need pants for this conversation?" you say, because it doesn't seem fair, this impenetrable wall of Swan against your own faulty defenses. 

"I don't care," says Swan, with a certain lilt to it. Unsaid:  _ that's never bothered you before. _

You don't say,  _ well, before was Before, and you were different then. _

"Pass me my jeans, will you?"

Swan raises an eyebrow and takes a pointed step away from your pile of mostly-clean clothes. Dickhead.

You get dressed and try to ignore the roiling in your gut while Swan watches. Probably no one's died. Probably. Although, if he wants to talk about before, then you'd rather someone was. Preferably you.

"Should I change my underwear too?"

Silence. You are not blushing, not even a little. You just have a fever. Goddamn Swan.

"Where were you last night?" Swan asks.

"Why do you care?" You don't look at him, but you can see him in your peripheral. You can imagine, though, the still way he holds himself, the anger wound tight in his shoulders, the hard line of his jaw. 

You fidget out of self defense, staring at a faded pinup without really seeing it. It's one of yours, chosen mostly for the car she's draped over. The girl's eyes look dead. A memory hits you, a face half bloody, vacant eyes, the taste of her in your mouth.

" _ Skov _ ," says Swan, sharp. You jerk back to yourself, force your hands away from your arms. There's blood under your fingernails.

"Sorry," you mumble. "That's what happens if you try to talk to me before noon." 

"It's two in the afternoon." You can feel how much he wants to hit you.

"Metaphorical noon. I just fucking woke up, give me a break." You pick at your scabs because you know Swan hates it. You have a lot of new cuts and scratches that you don't remember getting.

"You haven't answered. Where were you last night?"

You're so close to the breaking point. If you had a sledgehammer, you'd use it instead.

"None of your fucking business, Swan, what the hell?"

"You forgot." It's a statement, not a question.

You have forgotten a lot of things, recently.

You're saved from having to answer by an impatient series of knocks. You look up at Swan; he looks at you. His hands are curled into fists.

"Well?" you say. "Are you gonna answer?"

"Are you?" he says, not talking about the door at all. You just stare at him.

After a moment, he goes to the door.

"If it's Jiang, I'm not here," you say. Swan sneers, eyes your throat. It aches where Jiang grabbed you, last night.

"Lover's spat?" he asks. "Boyfriend knocking you around?"

"Haha," you say, edging away from the door. The knocking picks up in intensity. Swan gives you a lingering look to prove you're not the boss of him, and then goes to the door.

It's not Jiang. It's Prokopenko. He grins wide when he sees Swan and Swan-- Swan fucking grins back. Once again, your world tilts on its axis. 

"Hey man," says Prokopenko. "Skov around?" 

Swan jerks a thumb at you, hiding out of view, and steps back, letting Proko into your room. He's standing differently, more relaxed, like he's showing off.

"You two know each other?" you say, aiming for unconcerned and barely missing.

"Fucking Aglionby," says Prokopenko. "Who don't I know?"

"Not everyone's as fucking antisocial as you," says Swan. "Christ, Skov."

"Yeah, okay," you say, and you can't help the irritation in your voice. Swan has more scars on his knuckles than you have bones in your body. "What are you doing here?"

"You ran off so soon last night, we didn't get a chance to talk."

"I didn't think we had anything to talk about," you say.

"After what happened?"

"What happened?" says Swan, and he sounds mild, but there's something dark in his eyes.

Prokopenko launches into the story. You admire the way he can say "violent paranormal bullshittery" with a straight face.

"I thought this werewolf stuff was a secret," you interrupt. Proko grins down at you.

"Swan grew up around here," he says. "Didn't you know?"

"He is my roommate," you say, through gritted teeth. Prokopenko grins wider.

"Interrupting is rude," says Swan.

"That was basically the jist of it," says Proko. "What the fuck, right?"

"Mmm," says Swan. 

"I think it's Lynch," says Prokopenko. You raise your eyebrows.

Ronan Lynch has a black BMW that looks fast. Rumor has it, he stole it. His father died over the summer and he got a nine hundred dollar tattoo like a nightmare etched into his back. He hangs around Richard Gansey III, darling of Aglionby, like a planet hangs around the sun.

You really doubt Ronan Lynch is involved.

"Yeah?" you say. Proko nods, tossing himself onto your unmade bed and sprawling out. You look away.

"Kavinsky saw him, Dick III, and Parrish at the gelato place with a public school girl."

"Ah," says Swan, like he gets it. Irritation makes you start picking at your fingernails again.

"Okay?" you say.

"Apparently, the girl's like, some psychic or something. There's an ad in the phonebook and everything. Witchcraft shit, I'm telling you."

"And you think Lynch is involved?" 

"Why else would he be hanging around some  _ girl? _ "

"Maybe Dick III's having a sexuality crisis," says Swan. "Got a new girlfriend."

"If she is a psychic or a witch or whatever, wouldn't it be her then? Why the fuck would Lynch be involved?" you say.

"No, it's fucking witchcraft shit. I'll prove it." He kicks at your headboard. 

"Good luck with that," says Swan.

"You're going to help me," says Proko, and he's bouncing back to his feet. You jerk back but he's already caught you around the waist, pulling you into him. You hate the way he feels, warm and real and inviting.

"No," you say, just to be difficult. You squirm but his grip holds. He ruffles your hair, pulling just a bit too hard.

"Yes, you are," he says. "Swan too."

Swan's trying to fight a grin, you can tell. Who the fuck is Prokopenko to him that he keeps fucking smiling? "Am I?" 

"Sure," and he lets go, shoves you into Swan, who steadies you with an arm over your shoulders. 

"I'm going to knock your fucking teeth down your throat," you tell Proko, half meaning it. 

"Come at me," he says. "You're still going to help."

"All right," says Swan. You twist and glare at him. "It's not like I had anything else to do." He pointedly looks down at you. 

"You're outnumbered," says Proko. "Don't worry, we'll tell Jiang you struggled. Let's go, I've got a plan."

He hustles you out of your room, literally throwing your shoes out after you. You haven't showered in a while now, you feel disgusting, but there's no time. At least you get to drive your own car; Prokopenko makes Swan ride in front with you, presumably to keep you from doing a u-turn halfway there. He spreads out in the backseat like he fucking pays rent.

Proko leads you to Richard Gansey's apartment, a massive brick building with MONMOUTH MANUFACTURING painted on the side. Apparently Dick III's too good to live in Aglionby dorms like the rest of you. After Lynch's father got murdered he'd moved in. That, at least, you can understand. You've been trying to get Swan to leave some of his shit at your grandma's place for years.

Jiang's waiting in the parking lot across the street. You pull up next to him.

"Took you long enough," Jiang's says, rolling down his window. "Nothing's happening. I don't think Lynch is even here." 

"You could've come with," says Proko, rolling down his own. Jiang's gaze darts from you to Swan, lightening quick.

"Fuck that, Skov's already mauled me once," he says, with the edge of a grin, to show he's only joking. Shame and pleasure in equal amounts roil in your stomach.

"His car is here," says Swan. "Lynch's." It is, an inhumanly pretty black BMW.

"Dick III's isn't," says Jiang. "Maybe they're on a date."

"What's your plan?" asks Swan, twisting so Proko can hear him.

"My plan is wait here until he does something suspicious," says Prokopenko. "You said you didn't have anything else to do today."

"This is the shittiest plan ever thought up, literally," you say. Swan leans over you and hits the horn, short, presumably in agreement.

"Shut up," Prokopenko hisses, ripping at Swan's arm, but it's too late. Someone is stirring in one of the ridiculously oversized windows of Monmouth.

Prokopenko swears; you laugh. 

"No one's coming out, should I do it again?" says Swan, squinting across. "Hey, anyone have Lynch's number?"

"'R-U-A-Witch?'" Jiang mimes texting. "Proko wants to know."

"Take it up the ass from your mom," says Prokopenko. Swan lays on the horn again. He has to lean into you to do it and you're uncomfortably aware of how long it's been since he touched you.

"I'm--" Proko starts, but a familiar ringtone cuts him off. No one says anything until it stops. Almost instantly, it goes off again. Proko fishes his phone out of his pocket, shuts it off.

Jiang's starts up immediately. Same ringtone. He takes it out just so you can all stare.

"It's not even a good song," you say, a little desperately. Swan's back in his own seat, stiff.

"Someone has to answer eventually," says Jiang, eyeing it like a bomb that could go off. It stops; you wait a beat, and then yours starts.

Proko grabs it, answers.

"We're not doing anything," he says, before Kavinsky can get a word out. A beat. “Fuck you, I’m not--” he bites his own lip, not looking at any of you. You’ve never thought of him as small, still don’t, but something’s different. There’s something twisted in his face, something awful and familiar.  “Fuck you,” he says, after a moment, and, “Fine.”

He shoves your phone back to you, call still going.

“Skov,” says Kavinsky, when you put it to your ear. “Wanna swing by my place real quick?” It’s not really a question.

“That’s not really a question,” you say, looking into the backseat. Proko’s not looking back.

“You’re right,” he says. “Damn. Alright, your place then. I’ll be by.”

“Uh,” you say, carefully not looking at Swan. 

“Me and Proko need to chat,” says K, cheerful as anything. “Don’t worry about it. Be there.” He hangs up.  

.

Jiang doesn’t follow you back. You ask, but he just laughs, shakes his head, and tears out. You really don’t blame him.

Prokopenko doesn't say a word the whole way there; neither does Swan. You play music too loud to cover it up. You are uncomfortably aware of the similarities here, you and Swan, Proko and K. You sort of want to keep driving, to kick Swan out somewhere and just let it be you and Prokopenko. You think you know what he was talking about last night. You don’t, though.

Kavinsky’s waiting for you outside your dorm. He’s sitting on the hood of his car, smoking. No one else is around, which doesn’t seem right. For all you’ve seen him on his own more than you have with others, these past weeks, it just feels wrong. 

You park next to him, and Swan gets out first. K pretends not to notice.

“Skov,” he greets you, flicking his ash in your direction. “Glad you’re still in one piece.”

“Same,” you say. 

“Hey, Proko,” he says, turning. “Hey, man, what the fuck? We’ve talked about this.”

“Fuck off,” says Proko, shoulders tight.

“Mmm.” Kavinsky raises his eyebrows, sunglasses sliding down a little. “Is that really how you want to play this?”

Prokopenko stares at his shoes, hands crammed into his pockets. You really don’t want to be here for this. It feels like something that shouldn’t be happening outside.

Kavinsky takes a step toward him. Prokopenko doesn’t flinch, but it’s a near thing.

"Really?" says Swan, dry as kindling, and it doesn’t hurt, but you can’t see how this is going to help. You drift, almost aimlessly, until you’re nearly between them. Not too close, but enough to intervene, if you have to. You don’t know who you’d have to intervene for, but you want to be ready.

"Swan," says Kavinsky, like he's only just noticed. He deliberately turns his back on Prokopenko. "Been a while, man, you avoiding me?"

Swan glares. "Don't be a bitch," he says.

"Whoa, whoa man," says Kavinsky, spreading his hands in a gesture of innocence. "What crawled up your ass and died?"

"My fucking patience." He leans around you; Kavinsky moves closer. You're starting to have trouble breathing.

"Fuck off, Swan," says Proko. His face is unconcerned but his knuckles are white. Swan studies him a second, then looks at Kavinsky. Deliberately, he spits at his feet.

“Fine,” he says, and turns. It feels like someone’s tearing out your fingernails, but you follow his lead. 

Kavinsky doesn’t even notice. You look back, from the door, but he’s just leaned in close to Proko, talking with his hands. Proko’s still looking at the ground. You keep walking.

Swan fucks off for about an hour to parts unknown; you wait in your room, thinking. Something you hadn’t considered earlier, but should have. The way Proko and Swan and Kavinsky all-- they don’t feel the same, exactly, but they’re similar. All magic, maybe. Swan’s rage, familiar, could’ve been what you felt last night. He grew up around here, he knows something. He could be the huntsman.

It should probably bother you more, but all you can think about are his teeth, his breath on your skin, him wrenching your arms behind your back, forcing you to the ground. That’s not how it ever happened, but it feels like a memory.

And, yesterday, last night--

You’d never forgotten before. No wonder he was pissed.

Swan comes back, finally, looking-- not calmer, but stable, at least. He shuts the door hard behind him, and looks down at where you’re sprawled across your bed. It's just the two of you. Swan looks like a statue, all golden in the dying light. 

"It's the 19th," you say, into the silence.

"Yes," he says.

"I didn't-- it won't happen again," you say. This is as close as you can get to apologizing. 

"I didn't go," he says. "So whatever."

"It's not too late," you say, you hope.

Swan presses his thumb to his bottom lip, shoulders tight, but he nods. 

He drives. The cemetery is closed by the time you get there, so he has to boost you over the fence.

His parents are buried side by side, with room on the side for Swan, one day. They wanted a mausoleum but Swan vetoed it. You stare down at them in the dark. Plants have taken over his mother's plaque, even more than last year. You offered to trim them back once and Swan broke your nose.

You kick at the dirt. Swan looks at his shoes.

"We should come late every year," he says. "Meet expectations."

"Keep the bar on the ground, where it fucking belongs," you agree. In the spring, the cemetery is covered in wildflowers. In fall, like now, it's plain and ugly. The mountains in the distance though--

"Prokopenko's alright," Swan says, after a moment. 

"Obviously," you say. Swan huffs a laugh. You think you can hear the night guard down the hill.

"You fucking suck sometimes," he says, but it's without heat.

"Likewise."

"My parents would hate you."

"Your parents would probably hate  _ you _ ," you say, and he nods to himself.

"Thank fucking god for that," he says. "Let's get out of here."

Swan has the worst fucking taste in music. You've made him mixtapes, you've put together endless playlists, you've made fucking powerpoints. He still listens to the same top-twenty pop shit. 

He doesn't play anything on the way back. It's somehow worse. 

"You finish Sawyer's assignment?" you say.

"It's not due until next week."

"I did the reading. You'll hate it. The main character dies at the end."

"Thanks," he says, dry, and pulls into a gas station. You stalk off to get snacks.

You wait until the acne-faced attendant's distracted before slipping an ice cream bar into your jacket sleeve. When you walk out you sneer at him; he looks at his shoes. 

You could buy it if you wanted. You could buy the whole fucking store. You could grab his stupid t-shirt and pull him over the counter and rip out his stomach. You can do anything you fucking want.

"If you get that shit on my car, I'll push you out and run you over," Swan warns, as you swing back into your seat and unwrap it.

"Like you'd notice," you say, taking a massive bite. Swan's dashboard is covered in fast food trash and empty energy drink cans.

"I'd notice," he says, and leans over to steal a bite. You pummel him the rest of the way back, to the detriment of his driving ability. You don't wreck, miracle of miracles. You've had a lot of miracles lately. You're worried you're going to run out soon.

Once you're back in your dorm, you're ready for the truce to be over, for Swan to disappear but he doesn't. He crowds you against the closed door and looks at you. The room feels charged. It's been so long.

He moves slowly, like he's giving you time to pull back, and tangles his fingers in your hair. He tugs, considering. Your breath comes in shakey. You want so much. His eyes are hot and dark, barely visible in the dim light. 

"Swan," you say, his name just rolling off your tongue. His hands slide down, fingers curling around your arms. Heat coils in your stomach.

You kiss him hard, relishing the way he crushes you back, until all you can feel is the steady solidness of the door and his body, thrumming and moving against yours. You feel trapped, just how you like it.

His hands are too tight around your arms, keeping you pinned. You push back, opening your mouth to him, biting at his lower lip. He shoves you, a hard movement that jars your bones, and you shudder with delight. He tastes like blood and the almost-blood of hard, desperate kisses. Christ. You hurt all over.

You tangle your hands together because he won't let you touch him, yet, but you can reach him in other ways. You lean your hips forwards, wriggling until you fit together like you're meant to. 

He's hard against your thigh; you're aching in your jeans. You roll your hips, experimental, just testing, and he shoves you again. It feels like you're getting fucked and the thought makes heat tighten in your stomach. His nails dig into your skin. 

You say his name again, into his mouth, and things go from restrained to wild. He pushes you up further, until you're barely touching the floor, and he ravages your neck, sucking at your jugular. If he is the huntsman, he could rip you to pieces right now. You make a sound that's not quite a groan, not quite a gasp. 

A hand goes to your zipper; you use your newly liberated arms to pull at his hair, angling his jaw up so you can bite, hard. Swan snarls and shoves your jeans and boxers down around your knees. 

"God," you say. "Oh, fuck." Your cock is pressing hot against his jeans, pressed tight between you. He shoves his own jeans down, and fuck, he's leaking all over, dripping over your skin. You grab his shirt for leverage, probably ripping the stupid thing, and start to  _ move. _

"Fuck yeah," Swan breathes, low and rough. "Fuck, Skov, I want--" His voice gets inside you, makes your chest tight, makes it hard to fucking breathe, and you lose what last bit of decorum you had. 

You're basically riding his thigh and fuck,  _ fuck,  _ you fit together just right, you roll your hips frantically, sweat and precome making it slick. He gets his hands on your ass, digging in hard, keeping you close. Your neighbors are probably disgusted, they can definitely hear the rhythmic thump of your bodies against the door; you couldn't care less. 

"Shit-- Swan-- Sw--" Sparks bloom bright in front of your eyes, you're struggling to breathe, the pressure in your balls builds and builds until it fucking hurts, your thighs are trembling. You're almost, almost-- he bites down on your shoulder, tearing at you, and you come. Swan groans low, his cock twitching against you, makes you move through it, getting come everywhere. 

You lean into him; he doesn't stop, just wipes one hand in the mess and-- fuck, he's fingering you with your own come. You squirm and groan in his grip, not sure if you're trying to get away or get closer. Too soon he stops, lifts you by your thighs, until his cock is lined up and--

"Holy fuck," you say, or think you say. You stretch around him and it fucking burns, it hurts, you're oversensitive as hell but Swan doesn't go slow. He buries himself deep and-- fuck-- you can feel his pulse through his dick. He grunts on every thrust and you can't do anything except lean into him and try to suck in breaths. 

"Fucking desperate," he pants at one point, slapping your thigh for emphasis. You clench around him and he curses, hits you again. You wish he'd go further but that still feels like too much, you don't dare ask for it.

When he comes, so do you, again. You both slide to the floor, a tangle of jeans and come and sharp knees. You think you have splinters in your back where your shirt rode up. You might be bleeding, probably in multiple places. You don't ever want to move.

Swan keeps you there for a few minutes while you both come down. Eventually he pulls out and away, and you feel so much more disgusting. If you thought you could walk, you'd make straight for the showers. 

Swan mostly wipes himself clean with a nearby t-shirt and leaves you on the floor. You tilt your head back and close your eyes, listening to the familiar sound of him getting dressed.

"You gonna sleep on the floor?" he says, after.

"'M thinking about it," you say, truthfully. 

"If you keep blocking the door, and I have to piss at two am, I'm going to fucking piss on you," he says. 

"Mmm. Hot," you say, and peek through your lashes to watch Swan grimace.

"Go clean up, you disgusting piece of shit," he says, throwing his soiled shirt at you. You give a half hearted attempt to dodge.

"I can't fucking walk, asshole," you say. "Someone skimped on prep. You didn't even wear a fucking condom, you better be fucking clean."

"I should be saying that to you, the way you fucking get around. Crawl if you have to."

"Go shoot your dick off," you say, and manage to stagger to your feet. You pull your jeans up, which doesn't make it any less obvious that you've just gotten fucked.

"You'd miss it too much," says Swan, and fuck that, you've missed this. Just talking shit, just talking. You'd rather kill yourself than say it out loud, but  _ fuck.  _

Swan throws a mostly clean towel at your head. You make your way to the showers. There's another kid washing his hair in the sink-- he sees you and decides he's clean enough. Something smug and savage grows in your chest.

You take inventory of your injuries under the hot spray-- altogether, not as bad as they felt at the time. Or maybe your werewolf bullshit is helping out. Maybe it's the hot water. By the time you're done you can walk normally, not shaking at all. You're a little disappointed. 

You also have time to reflect on what terrible fucking life choices you've been making lately. You don't even know what Swan is, and you let him put his teeth against your throat. When you check the mirror, there's a faint mark. If it's still around next time you see your pack, you're fucked. Again. In a probably less fun way. Probably.

You imagine it for a split second; Proko's hot breath on your back, Jiang's hands in your hair, Kavinsky's fucking mouth, hot skin all around you, your pack, and Swan--

You flip the shower dial all the way to cold for a split second, just enough to shake your thoughts away, before turning it off.

You are such a goddamn disaster. Self loathing chokes in your throat; without thinking, you slug the mirror, slipping on the wet tile as you do. You land hard on your ass, blood and a few tiny pieces of glass you managed to scrape down with you getting fucking everywhere. Perfect. 

You gingerly towel off, avoiding the mess as best as you can. Aglionby has undoubtedly seen worse but you don't want to have to answer any awkward questions, so you leave your towel spread over the few stray fragments and book it in your dirty clothes.

You don't go straight back to your room; you need advice. If you're being honest, you've needed advice for a while. 

You try to avoid honesty.

You sneak outside, sitting in the favored smoking section just behind the building. It's not deserted when you arrive, but it clears out rapidly when you start glaring.

You call your grandmother.

"What the fuck?" she sounds half asleep.

"I think I fucked up," you say.

"Skovron?" and "Then run. Who do I need to call?"

"I can't run," you say, ignoring the second half of her response. 

"Why the fuck not?" she's pissed now. It might have been better if you'd waited until morning. 

"It's Swan."

"What did you do?"

You don't think you can tell her. Instead, you ask her what she knows about witchcraft.

Your grandmother swears, long and complicated and-- desperate. She finishes with "What have you been fucking around with, Skov?" 

_ Joseph Kavinsky, _ you don't say.

"Henrietta, maybe," you say. 

"I'm pulling you out of school," she says. Ice grips your heart. 

"You can't," you say, automatic.

"I'm-- I'm calling your father, and he can pull you out. You have crossed a line, Skovron." There's not even a trace of sleep in her voice now.

"Don't-- it's not that bad," you lie. "It's just been a long night, and it's Swan."

"I am too old for this," she says. You privately agree. "You are responsible for my medical bills, now and forever."

Even if you didn't have excellent health insurance, both you and your grandmother individually have enough liquid assets to pay her medical bills several times over. "Okay, that's fair," you say.

She sighs. "What did you call for, besides to scare off my last few remaining years?"

"How do you know if someone is--" a huntsman. Part of a forest. Possibly some sort of spirit. "--magic?"

"Made or born?"

"Born."

"Burn them with iron. Look for things out of place. Check blood color. Be watchful."

Swan definitely bleeds red. Everything is out of place. His Golf definitely contains iron. All that's left to do is be watchful. 

"Okay," you say, instead of  _ could you be any more fucking unhelpful? _

"In the morning, I am calling your father," says your grandmother.

"You can't take me out of Aglionby," you say, and let just a hint of edge crowd in. 

She matches your tone. "We will see. Goodnight, Skovron."

"Goodnight," you say, but the line is already dead.

You sit for a little while longer, something like rage and something like shame battling each other for place in your head. Then, when it gets cold enough, and you can't fucking stand your disgusting clothes any longer, you go back inside.

 


	5. Chapter 5

"What were you doing?" says Swan, when you return to your room.

"Having a smoke." You don't look at him when you say it.

"There's blood all over the bathroom," he says. Something ugly scratches at your insides.

"Weird," you say, voice flat as you hunt for a change of clothes. There's no way you're going to be able to sleep now.

"You going somewhere?" he says. You pull on a mostly clean shirt. 

You don't reply, you just leave. 

You know, objectively, that the night does not welcome you. The darkness isn't a caress, it's just an absence of light. The sky isn't endless, it's just black. It feels so good to be in it, though. It feels like all those things. 

Swan follows you out, and you don't know how to feel so you don't acknowledge him. He makes it easy, stays quiet, doesn't even ask where you're going. You walk out past the dorms, past the empty lot, and into the trees. It's not real woods but you feel better anyway. 

Part of you wants to rip yourself into pieces, to run so quickly Swan has no hope of catching up. That part of you wants to bury your head in the sand and wait for the axe to fall as well. 

Instead, using the shadows like armor, hiding in them, you turn and face Swan.

"What," you say, because you're hoping he knows what you need to know. You hope he won't make you ask.

"Skov," he says. Soft. You can't fucking stand it.

Silence. You can't see his eyes, won't look for them, but you know he's watching you.

"Did you kill someone?" he asks. 

"Maybe." You don't tell him you can't remember. Your stomach is clenching; you feel sick all over.

Swan sighs. He sounds like he wishes he had something to smoke; you concur. This isn't a conversation you want to be sober for.

"That's not something you can ever make up," he says. "You can't fix it."

"I know," you say, trying not to think about it. You don't want to talk about this but you can't make yourself change the subject. You can't ask:  _ hey are you the thing that hunted me last night _ ? You can't just out and say:  _ what the fuck is going on  _ or  _ what’s going to happen now? _

You feel like a coward for wanting to know, for throwing yourself into this and then choking. There are a thousand names for what you are.

"What do you look like as a wolf?" Swan asks, suddenly, something unfamiliar in his voice. 

You aren't going to ask him. He won't tell you. You feel the tension leech out of your body. Some of the anger stays, of course, and you let it harden in your chest.

You curve your mouth into something fierce and inviting.

"Here," you say, and let the change take you. It gets easier every time.

Swan looks taller here, and you can-- not quite see him, but you can sense him better. Your throat aches with words you can no longer say.

"Shit," he breathes, crouching. You approach, let him run his hands through your fur, pulling lightly as he goes like he's playing with your hair.

You whine when he tweaks your ear, startling a soft laugh.

"Like a puppy," he says. You snap at his hands, not really trying, and he catches you by the muzzle. You shake at him, but you don't actually want to pull away.

"Open your mouth, Skov," Swan says, the same way he's asked you for impossible things before. You do, tongue lolling out between your canines. Swan traces your teeth with a reverent finger. You push at his hand with your muzzle.

"Shit," he says again, tapping you gently on the nose. "What the fuck have you gotten yourself into?"

You can't tell if he's talking to you or himself. Either way, you crowd close, forcing him to lean into you. He allows it for a little while, scratches behind your ears in a way you'll never admit to liking, and then gets to his feet.

"Hey there," he says, looking past you. You don't need to turn to know it's Jiang, tail held high and ears perked. He leans against you as he passes, accepting Swan's hand as readily as you did.

For a second, something hot and ugly and unfamiliar to this body threatens to overwhelm you. It passes easily, and you shake like you're ridding yourself of water. It's just pack. It's just Swan and Jiang.

So you leap back, run a quick circle around them, purposely bumping into Swan to throw him off balance. He swears but doesn't mean it, gently swatting at your ass in retaliation. 

Jiang nips at his shirt and pulls him a few steps. Swan looks down at him, bemused. 

"Did Timmy fall down a well?" Swan says, dry, but he follows Jiang. You follow them, skin itching to go faster, to lead, but you don't actually know where Jiang's taking you.

"I should get leashes," says Swan. Something in you burns and you growl. He looks down at you, small smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

Jiang tosses his head, hip checking Swan to recapture his attention, presumably.

You catch the scent first, but you don't react. Despite your fur you think you can feel a chill.

Kavinsky and Prokopenko appear together, and Jiang goes straight to them. He ducks under Proko's head, barreling into his chest, and receives a nip on the shoulder for his troubles.

You get the feeling that this night jaunt was planned. You wonder if your inclusion was another happy accident.

You stay with Swan, uncomfortably aware of the image you must make: Swan across the clearing from Kavinsky, you at his feet, the gap between. You press your ears flat, skin prickling.

Kavinsky grins wide, panting amiably. Swan sneers in response. He doesn't seem to notice the strangeness of being the only human among wolves. You brace yourself for a beating, not entirely sure where it'll come from but hoping.

It doesn't happen. Instead, Jiang seems to get bored climbing over Prokopenko and he goes for the edge of your makeshift circle. Kavinsky seems to shake himself, not breaking eye contact with Swan but stepping sideways, toward Jiang. Proko doesn't even seem to notice the tension. (Even your wolf feels like puking.)

Jiang growls, shifting his weight forward and back. When he starts to run, you all follow. 

It reminds you not of the previous night and that fear filled dash, but stories about the wild hunt. You join or you die; seems a little too accurate to be comfortable. You just can't decide if it's Swan or Kavinsky who's playing Gwyn ap Nudd.

Jiang takes you to a familiar, flimsy new-money mansion. When you're close enough, he throws his head back and howls. It manages to be more menacing than beautiful. 

You cause just a little trouble: ripping at the yard, snarling at the windows, and Jiang pisses on the front door. You figure it's only fair; it's his house, after all. Even Swan gets into it, throwing a few rocks, cupping his hands around his mouth and doing his best to harmonize with the rest of you.

You're not really sure what the point is, but you go along, and it's almost enough for the wolf to stop you thinking. You're caught up trying to run interference between Kavinsky and Swan, subtly trying to make sure neither comes too close. Like most things with Swan, it feels like it could fall apart in a second.

True to form: Jiang's family starts to stir, woken in the dead of night. You probably could've guessed how that would go. You've woken Jiang up unexpectedly and gotten a black eye for it.

When Jiang's father starts shooting, you scatter. 

Somehow you get separated from Swan and end up with Jiang and Prokopenko, darting off toward the city. You don't see where Swan or K vanish off to. You don't even realize they're gone until you're stumbling back to humanity next to Proko's Golf and remember to do a headcount.

"I've got some jeans in the trunk that might fit you," says Proko, stretching back into his skin beside you.

You are almost sure that you've just been played. Cold fear bites down on your throat, and you don't even know what outcome will be worse.

You take the jeans, unsurprised to see that they're your own, put them on. Everything you do feels robotic, down to climbing into passenger seat and slamming the door shut. You are staring at your hands without really seeing them.

Proko lets Jiang into the back, still a wolf. He immediately puts his nose through the gap between seats and into your neck. You don't even flinch.

You are so tired. Anger makes you feel cruel, and you shove Jiang away.

Proko starts the car and cranks the heat. You think about how you would be reacting if you hadn't just been completely outmaneuvered, and decide to pretend.

"What was that about?" you ask. "Jiang having trouble coming out? Cause I'm sure they already know." 

Jiang growls at you from the backseat. You ignore him. 

"Just thought it would be funny," says Prokopenko, and he's not lying, but you're sure that's not all. 

"Sure," you agree. "Hilarious. I should've broken in and puked in the living room again, really fuck them up."

"Man, you should've. I bet Swan could've boosted you through the window."

"Probably," says Jiang, voice raspy from the change. "He's fit as hell." He leers at you in the rearview mirror. You match his expression. 

"Cold back there?" you say.

"Come see," he says. Your smile goes savage.

"I can see fine from here," you say, turning your gaze forward. You try not to think about Swan, incongruous in the passenger seat of the white Mitsubishi, or Kavinsky's rough hands on the wheel, infinite dark possibilities spilling out before them. 

"What crawled up your ass?" Jiang says, but not like he's actually looking for an answer. 

“Leave him alone, it’s that time of the month,” says Prokopenko. You reach out and jerk the steering wheel. The car lurches into the opposite lane and Proko swears, scrambling to correct before you get flattened by a semi.

“Touchy touchy,” says Jiang, but when you strain you can hear his heart beating wildly. 

“You wish,” you say, before the music goes so loud you can’t be heard over it. 

.

Prokopenko pulls into the empty fairgrounds and kills the engine. There's a distant streetlight but that's the only sign of humanity. It looks like a separate planet, all flat darkness.

"Not back to Kavinsky's?" 

"Nah," says Proko. Your pulse starts to pick up. Jiang leans forward, between your seats.

You're not an idiot. You know what this is. You know you need to stop.

When Jiang slides a hand into your hair, though, you go with it. You let him pull you in, you kiss him back. 

"More room in the backseat," says Prokopenko, voice rough. Jiang breathes out sharp against your mouth.

You climb through the seat gap because you're small enough to get away with it, only elbowing Jiang once. He doesn't seem to mind, pulling you onto his bare lap, hands skimming over the lines of your hips. You can see just enough to admire the color contrast. Everything seems very far away.

Proko has to get out and go around, sliding in next to Jiang and unbuttoning his own jeans with ease. They press you between them. 

You kiss Jiang, or you kiss him back, and let him keep your hands busy. You’re so angry you could suffocate on it, if you could just slide the glass back and touch it. 

Maybe this will help, you think. The worst it can do is hurt.

So you turn your head and catch Prokopenko’s mouth, almost testing. He grabs your hair, pulls you hard against him. Jiang leans in to suck your collarbone, using too much teeth. It doesn’t really feel good but it feels, which is all you can ask for. There is a lot of bare skin in this car; you can smell them both, their sweat and dirt and how much they want you.

Proko strokes down your neck, squeezing gently, and it makes you gasp. Jiang bites you again and it hurts. He’s hard against your jeans and you wonder if he likes how rough they feel because he won’t stop fucking moving. You try to move with him, rocking yourself, and Proko tightens his grip on you. They’re both taller than you, can hold you down easily, and the thought makes you squirm harder. You’re pretty sure you’ve had dreams that started this way.

“I’ve been thinking about this,” says Prokopenko, and you want to fucking die.

“I--,” you say, and choke off when Proko squeezes again. 

“Fucking tell me about it,” says Jiang. “For being so fucking easy, you can’t take a hint.”

Proko laughs; you bury your face in his arm and try not to think about Swan or Kavinsky or the full moon or anything else. Proko pulls your hair, kisses you again.

“This good?” he asks, against your mouth. For an answer, you grab one of his hands and guide it over your crotch so he can feel how hard you are. Jiang arches up so the three of you are touching. Then he moans, sudden, like maybe Proko did something extra. You can feel the ridge of his palm against your thigh and not much else.

“Want you to come on me,” says Jiang, voice shaking. He rolls his hips, straining up against your jeans. “Both of you, fuck.”

That gets you, and you groan into Proko’s mouth. Someone’s hand squeezes your hip, thumbnail digging in hard to your skin. 

“Whatever you want,” says Prokopenko, voice low. Your insides twist in on themselves. You can feel his dick against your lower back, can’t decide if you should lean into it or away.

“I want Skov’s fucking pants off,” says Jiang, tugging at them. “What did you give him jeans for anyway?”

“Could’ve saved time,” you agree, even though you know why. You wonder if you would’ve gotten into the car with them, if you’d known this was going to happen. Probably.

“Up,” Proko says, and it turns out the nails stabbing into you belong to him. He urges you up and you manage to get your jeans around your thighs. Jiang pulls you forward, bracing himself against the seat to rub his cock against yours.

You almost lose your balance, bucking forward into him, one hand going to his shoulder and the other gripping the seat.

“Should’ve brought lube,” says Proko. He’s rocking against your ass, reminding you forcefully of Swan, of earlier that night. You suck in a desperate breath, grinding back and pulling Jiang with you.

“Oh, fuck, next time,” says Jiang. He’s writhing, thigh slotted between your legs, sweat making him slide perfect against you. “You could-- take turns--”

“Fuck,” you say, involuntary, as Proko bites down on a bruise left by Swan. Your skin feels too tight, almost overwhelmed by the heat coiled in your abdomen.

“Sounds fucking perfect,” says Proko. “Fuck you both till you can’t stand, make you suck me, make you suck each other--”

You shake apart, and Jiang groans as your come streaks his hip. Proko snarls and bends you forward, sliding against the crease of your ass, leaning over to bite at Jiang’s mouth. Sweat makes the three of you slick and it’s almost like getting fucked.

Jiang has a leg hitched over your hip, grinding against your stomach, mumbling nonsense and dirty talk and who knows what else. You press your face into his neck and let them use you. You feel them both come and it should feel disgusting, you should hate it, but you don’t. You hate yourself instead.

You wait for them to catch their breath, for you to get your head back. Your knee, braced against the seat next to Jiang, feels numb.

“Man, you got any napkins?” asks Jiang, after a moment. 

“If there aren’t any in the seat pocket, then no,” says Prokopenko. Jiang makes a face.

“Dude, gross.”

“I thought you wanted come all over you,” says Proko. 

“Heat of the moment, asshole,” says Jiang. It feels uncomfortably familiar.

“Is that it?” you ask, once Proko’s pulled away. You pull up your jeans, not even bothering to wipe your hand on the seat. It feels disgusting. 

“Huh?”

“Distraction over, mission accomplished, can I go now?” you say, pulling back. The windows are fucking misted, even though the car’s door is still open.

“What?” says Jiang, eyes wide in a way you know means he’s lying. Proko just looks at you. The glass has almost dissipated. 

“Yeah,” you say, and get out. The air feels good against your bare chest and you realize how close you were to suffocating. You wonder if you’re going to throw up.

Proko keeps watching you; Jiang can’t meet your eyes.

“You let us,” he says, damning you because he’s right. You wanted this. 

You let them trap you, separate you from Swan, keep you from interfering with whatever Kavinsky has hidden up his sleeve. You made your fucking bed. You chose, you disloyal son of a bitch.

You don’t say anything. Proko nods, like the silence answered for you. 

“Get back in the car,” says Jiang. “It’s over with.” 

“Fuck off,”you say, looking down at him. Jiang looks like so much less, soft dick against his thigh, sprawled and filthy in the backseat of someone else’s car. You feel a little sick looking down at him. “You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for me.”

Jiang’s face changes, just a little closer to anger, and he’s a real person again. 

“If it weren’t for Kavinsky,” he says. “You’d be nothing. I’d still be here; you think it was bad fucking luck you bit me? You think I didn’t know what the fuck you were from the second you got into my car? You think you’re the only one who chose?”

It makes an awful lot of sense; you know that Before, Jiang and Kavinsky ran in some of the same circles. You all did. It’s not a stretch of the imagination to see it, Jiang standing in the dark next to Prokopenko, a text the day after, while you’re laying in his bed telling him how to long to keep you there, to wait. You really aren’t anything remarkable.

“You think you’re the only one who can use people?” says Jiang. 

You put your hands in your pockets. (You can’t do anything right.  Not even become a monster.)

“You gonna walk home?” says Proko. You wish he didn’t sound so soft. 

“Yeah, I think so,” you say, and you do.

You cut across the field, jumping the broken down fence that marks the edge of the fairgrounds, and keep going. It’s a temptation to slide out of your skin. You’re sure that’s what the others expect you’re doing, running away from yourself, but you can’t. Not when you’ve got this much bullshit inside, aching to be burnt off. 

For once, you don’t want things to be simple. So you walk, human as anyone else in Henrietta, listening to your own frantic heartbeat with every step.

You really hope Swan isn’t dead. You aren't sure what you’ll do if he is; something violent and impulsive, probably. Something the newspapers will write about, something no one will be able to forget for generations. You can’t even tell if you’re being overdramatic or not.

You stop at the road, closing your eyes for just a second. The pavement stinks of rubber. In the distance you can hear an engine. You imagine a semi bearing down on you. You imagine Swan driving past, or Kavinsky, or Proko and Jiang. You want to see something shatter.

When you open your eyes, there’s just you and the road and the blackness overhead. 

You keep walking.

Your bare feet scrape against the pavement, and you know eventually you’ll have to actually figure out where the fuck you’re going, but it seems like a distant concern. Everything is exactly as it always has been; elsewhere, your life has been changed irrevocably. It just hasn’t reached you yet.

You pass a parking lot, mostly empty. You think you’re heading back toward town, but you aren’t sure yet. 

The car engine sounds closer. Someone says,  **_Skov,_ ** and you twist around.

A direct beam of light hits you in the face. Of fucking course. You try to cover your face but it's too late. Spots dance in front of your eyes.

"Henrietta Sheriff," calls the voice wielding the light. Mostly empty in the middle of the night apparently means ‘at least one cop car’."Hands behind your head."

"You're fucking joking," you say. You can't tell how bad it is-- you think he's got a partner somewhere close by, you can smell their hair product, but you can't pinpoint where. 

The distant engine has faded away; there's no sign of any other cars, nor do you hope there will be. It could be Tuesday night for all the locals care, and it's not like the middle of goddamn nowhere is a popular Aglionby spot, not without Kavinsky to fill it with pretty diversions.

You are effectively on your own. Might as well make the best of it.

"Hands," the voice repeats. 

"Am I being detained, officer?" you say, putting your hands behind your head. Presuming you controlled, the Sheriff moves the light away.

"You sure are," he says, moving his hand away from his belt. You raise an eyebrow.

"Sorry, I left my wallet in my other pants," you tell him, and it's hilarious how you're not even lying. 

"That so?"

"Indeed." You find yourself mimicking his speech patterns, exaggerating them just a little. You hope he can tell.

"What's your name boy?" he says.

"Joseph Kavinsky," you say. The Sheriff glares. Apparently everyone in this town knows K.

You grin up at him, flexing your hands behind your back. Just try me, you attempt to broadcast. Just go ahead and try. God, you've been itching for this.

"That so? You get a real bad tan since the last time we saw each other? You're looking a bit dark," says the Sheriff's partner, stepping into view finally. 

You spit at his feet. Disgust twists across his mouth. He and the Sheriff share a glance and you know you’re fucked.

"Now," drawls the Sheriff. "What have you been up to tonight?" His flashlight combs over your bare chest. You probably look fucking filthy.

"Didn't know taking a walk was against the law," you say. You don’t say, and sodomy’s been legal for at least twenty years.

"It's after curfew."

"Is it?" You could've sworn the sky was nearly pink. Your arms start to sag.

"Come on kid," says the Sheriff's partner, stepping forward. "Hands behind your head."

"My hands are behind my head," you repeat, aiming for monotone. You take a step back. You're about two inches from tumbling into the ditch.

"Stop," he says, and takes yet another step forward. It's not like you have anywhere left to go.

"Reflex," you say. 

The Sheriff sneers. "I think that's enough. You're coming back with us."

"I don't think so," you say. "Where's your probable cause?"

"Blood under your fingernails," says the Sheriff. "Out past curfew. You and I both know there's something that happened tonight I can attribute to you, son."

"Nice three dollar word there, 'attribute'. You got a word calendar at the office? You could keep it next to the empty donut boxes," you say, giving him your best smile. Something in your stomach is smoldering.

"That's it," says the sheriff's partner.

"Not another word," says the Sheriff.

He grabs you hard by the upper arm and you don't even think, you just twist and sink your teeth into his arm. The Sheriff bellows, backhands you hard, which effectively dislodges you. Your ears ringing, you still manage to roll to your feet and start running.

They catch you before you can break line of sight and shift. The cuffs aren't silver but they burn all the same.

.

You call Kavinsky; his cell goes to voicemail, so you just hang up and decide to settle in for the long haul.

You're the only one in your holding cell-- you're a minor, still, so they don't throw you in with the drunks. They also don't uncuff you, not that you blame them, but it makes laying down more difficult. 

You sleep a few hours before they wake you, slamming the door open hard enough to shake your cot. 

"Skovron," says your grandmother, tall and cold and imposing and just as you last saw her.  The Sheriff looks like he wishes he wasn't standing between you.

"Good morning Grandmama," you say, still slurring a little with sleep. “I didn’t call you.” It’s embarrassing, but a jail cell is not the worst place your grandmother has ever had to fetch you from.

“Skovron,” your grandmother returns. She looks you over, once, taking in everything you really wish she wouldn’t be able to read. You’ve always been an open book to her, all your worst parts constantly on display. You wish you could read anything on her.

The Sheriff says nothing at all the whole time, just uncuffs you and stand back. He’s wearing sunglasses indoors. You wish you had the luxury; you wince under the fluorescents.

“Have a good day, Officer,” you say, tipping an imaginary hat as you walk past. You try to throw some sway into it but your hips ache and it probably comes across rusty at best. Still-- it’s not every day a murderer gets to walk out of his cell, completely undetected. 

Then your grandmother takes you by the arm and all but drags you from the station. The drunks are mostly sleeping and you can’t spot the second officer on duty, so you let her.

You grimace when you see her car-- a shitty little coupe that has never cleared sixty in its tragically long life.

“Why do you even still have this,” you say, getting into the passenger seat even as your soul dies.

“It runs,” says your grandmother, getting into the driver's seat as she produces her keys from her handbag. You used to think her handbag contained entire tiny universes, ruthlessly organized in her spare time.

“That’s a horrible reason to have a car,” you say. “You should get a motorcycle. It would fit your personality.”

“If we had vehicles to reflect our personalities, you would drive a hearse,” she tells you.  “Or a tank.” She pulls out, and the morning sky somehow makes the slowness of the car worse.

“Ouch.” You close your eyes and pretend you’re listening to the roar of your RX-7. 

“Skovron,” says your grandmother, just when you’ve almost tricked yourself into falling back asleep. “This cannot continue.”

You crack an eye open to watch her and wait. She pulls up to a red light, perfectly smooth and controlled. Then she turns to face you. This close, you can see where her mascara is clumped at the edges of her lashes.

She leans in and you can smell rot. It’s exactly how you expected cancer to smell, if you’d thought about it at all.

“I’m dying,” she reminds you.

“So’s everyone,” you say, jerking away. No matter how hard you press yourself against the car door, you can’t escape the smell now you’ve noticed it.

“Skovron, playing the fool has never been your forte,” she says. The light changes, and she slowly accelerates.

“Untrue,” you say, but soft enough she can pretend not to hear.

“You know what you have to do,” she says. “You know what you are, and what you must be. The only way to return to yourself is to kill the thing that bit you.”

“I--”

“No. You have lived here long enough. You are a man now, more than your father has ever been. You will take responsibility for your actions.”

You try to swallow but your throat feels swollen. 

“I am not unhappy this way,” you finally manage to say, voice choked. You want to scream at her, over and over,  _ I chose this, I chose this, I did.  _ You didn’t, though. Kavinsky chose you first. 

The only way to describe her expression is ‘pitying’. 

“You do not know your own heart,” she says. “Your mother--” You can’t tell who you’d rather kill, in that moment: her or yourself.

“Don’t talk about her,” you say. “You didn’t know her.”

“Better than you ever did.”

She’s not wrong.

“You’re not taking my out of Aglionby,” you say, last chance desperate. 

“Your father doesn’t wish it,” she agrees. 

“Is he--”

“No.”

Figures. You’d have to actually get caught, tried and convicted to catch your father’s attention. Not that you’d ever particularly wanted it. 

You don’t say anything for the rest of the drive, you just lean your head against the window and wonder if anyone knows where you are. If they care to know. If they’re glad you’re gone now, no longer fucking everything up. 

You follow your grandmother into your childhood home and curl up in your bedroom, untouched during the school year. You sleep for a time, disjointed nightmares and someone who sounds almost like Swan calling your name. 

When you wake up the sky is a brilliant mix of blue and pink. You’re covered in sweat and you smell worse, still wearing your jeans from the night before, but you feel a little better. When you shower, that little becomes a lot. You make your bed and take a last moment to revel in the peace. 

It’s quiet this far up in the mountains, the nearest neighbor miles away. You used to worry about your grandmother, alone and vulnerable in this little house by herself. Then you started noticing the little things-- storms that conveniently skirted around the house, mudslides that changed direction at the last second, and the tiny little symbols littering the walls and yard. Tiny things, innocuous until you realized no one else had them. 

Of course the only thing that could take your grandmother out would be herself, her own body. It might even be a natural consequence of what she’s done. You don’t want to know. (Like mother like son like son.)

Your bedroom window slides open without a sound. The drop isn’t bad, the grass softening your landing. You change in the yard, heart in your throat despite the lack of neighbors. You’re less exposed when you’re a wolf, but you still feel someone’s eyes burning into you as you set off into the woods. You don’t look back.


	6. Chapter 6

The moon overhead is almost full, waning now. A reminder you didn’t need of how much has changed in just a few days. (The light still feels good on your fur.)

The air is full of interesting scents, cool and not quite damp. The night is young. Yet--

The wolf is better at running than you are, but ditching your fear is more difficult than you’d hoped. You end up pacing, wearing a track through the underbrush. You scratch at the dirt, you let your fur drag against the undergrowth, losing some. You’re only killing time.

It’s hard to stay stable-- you want to run _somewhere_ , but your chest aches. You feel pulled apart. The thoughts are distant, like all human thoughts are, but you can’t shake them. (The cold of the cuffs, Kavinsky’s hand on Swan’s thigh, the shape of your human mouth.)

You smell Jiang on the air, and you alter course without even thinking. Then you stop. You want to crawl forward with your tail between your legs; you want to turn and run and never stop running.

The indecision annoys you, and then you’re angry-- the wolf isn’t too bad at anger. You imagine your fangs peeling Jiang’s skin from his face, of ripping them all to shreds one at a time.

(You are so hungry. You are so lonely.)

A bird calls overhead, probably woken up by your pacing. You loop around its tree, snarling and ripping at the grass, and it shrieks louder.

You don’t know if you can keep yourself together. Thankfully, the night doesn’t seem to be inclined to help. Your breath mists in the suddenly-cold air.

You can feel him on the air, close now and growing closer by the second. The trees seem to loom, casting you into shadow.

The huntsman hits you like a bullet, driving into your side and throwing you off course. (Dramatic entrances seem to be a habit.) The blow knocks the wind out of you, and you’re hit by a flash of **fear-desperation-no-no-no.** Your skin peels back without your say; when you look up, with human eyes, it’s Swan.

“It’s been a while,” he says. Your stomach is tearing itself apart. You can’t breathe.

He bends over you; you can’t see his face but it’s obvious he’s looking right at you. “I like the outfit,” he says. “Bruises and blood and fur. Very boys club, very monster of the week.”

“Swan,” you say. You can’t think of anything else.

“Is that who you see when you look at me?” he twists his head, an impossible angle. You can’t look away.  “Typical.”

Then you blink and can’t imagine how you ever saw Swan; the huntsman is shorter by far, slender, and a girl. She’s impossibly familiar, but you can’t place her.

“Hello Skov,” she says.

“Who--”

“Don’t recognize me?”

You do not.

“Think hard, think back.”

You squint up at her, crouching, trying to recall her scent--and you do. You remember.

You remember everything-- arriving at the party, Kavinsky’s teeth in your arm, and the pretty girl walking home from work. She had a cut on her ankle, or maybe her wrist. She hadn’t even seen you coming.

“You made me, Skov,” she says. “You fucking ate me. Don’t you know anything?”

You probably should’ve paid more attention to your grandmother when you were younger. Probably should’ve wondered why Kavinsky doesn’t eat-- because of course he would know, as sure as shit Swan knows. You wonder if they’re together, now, laughing at you. You wonder if they set you up. Your throat feels swollen with something-- misery, maybe. Or anger. You can’t make a sound. The huntsman doesn’t seem to care.

“Isn’t it funny, how I know your name, and you don't know mine?” she asks. “Not funny like, ha-ha, but funny like you’re a piece of shit.”

If this were a horror movie, her skin would melt away and leave her with the scars and the wounds you gave her. Instead she stands over you in the dark, disgust curling the corners of her mouth. She’s small, thin wrists and tiny waist and dull brown eyes. If you stood, you’d be the same height.

“I didn’t--”

“Don’t you fucking lie-- you puked up my fingers. My eyes. I saw them. You killed me, and he let you. Then you ate me. That’s what happened. We were both there, Skov.”

She’s right. You wonder what your grandmother would say if she knew. How disappointed she’d be. You can see her anger reflected in the shoulders and the mouth of this dead girl.

“I’m sorry,” you say. Your voice is a rasp, the words pathetically small, and you don’t even mean them. (You’ve never been great at de-escalation.)

She just looks at you. The trees and the grass and the bushes all seem to lean into her, as though they long to pull her back into them. You wonder where she goes when she isn’t hunting you.

“Was it worth it?” she asks. “Do you love your new self? Do you feel powerful, hungry?”

It was. You do.

“You don’t deserve it.”

She’s right about that, too.

“I had a life; I was just sixteen. I was good at chemistry, I had a pet cat named Cherry, and two best friends who never get along if I’m not there. My aunt won’t survive without me, you know. She can’t do laundry for shit.”

You start to scoot backward, but she just follows you. Her fists, balled at her sides, are shaking.

“It doesn’t matter,” you say. You can’t stop yourself anymore. It’s not even like it was your fault-- you were out of your head. Kavinsky could’ve stopped you, and didn’t. He could’ve told you what you were, he could’ve taken you home.

“I had a future, I had plans. I bet you’ve seen the fucking Pyramids. I bet you travel to Europe every summer vacation. I never even got to leave the state. Do you think that’s right? I could’ve helped people--”

“You could’ve been anyone,” you tell her. “Whatever. Your fucking potential didn’t matter against my teeth. It’s not like I chose you.”

(Not like you were chosen, not like the choice you might’ve ruined, might have thrown away.)

She doesn’t seem to be paying attention, still wrapped up in herself.

“I can't even die right, thanks to you. You ate me-- you fucking ate me, you stupid, selfish, piece of shit--” she kicks at you, and you narrowly dodge.

“Take a look a mirror sometime,” you say.

“Selfish dipshit,” she says. “Fucking idiot. Not even born here. No one wants you here, no one wants you anywhere.”

You don’t think she has much room to talk.

“Listen,” you say, although you doubt she will. “Listen, I’m sorry, okay?”

She spits on you. Her saliva is black and there is a maggot in it. It wriggles on your bare skin.  Your stomach, still churning from earlier, turns inside out.

“Bitch--”

“And what does that make you?” She sneers, almost as good as Kavinsky.

You aren’t sure if the rage belongs to you or her. It probably doesn’t matter, the end result is the same:

You bite her, human teeth this time. She screams and punches you. Both things feel realer than you suspect they have a right to.

“I didn’t want this,” she says, staring down at you. Your jaw aches.

“You spilled my blood in Henrietta woods and I can’t ever rest, I don’t want to be part of you, I **don’t want this you did this you did--”**

She lunges for you, the huntsman again, all darkness and fury. You didn’t know the land you walked on could have opinions, but if you’d thought about it even a little, you think you would've realized it hated you.

You don’t have much of a choice-- you run. Her words meld into a single agonized scream, or maybe that’s just the wind through your fur as you half slide, half dash down the mountain.

(She’s right, really, about everything. It’s not like you didn’t choose to become the monster in this story. You want that poisonous, impossible feeling back-- the one you always get when you get away with something you shouldn’t. Tonight you’re just hollow.)

After a while you break from the trees. You hide from the woods and everything in them under a streetlight, feeling indecently exposed, and not just because you’re naked.

You don’t have anywhere left to go. The woods aren’t yours, Swan waits at Aglionby, and silver bullets your grandmother’s.

You shake in the wind, and crane your neck to glance up and down the street. Nothing much-- no cars for an unlikely rescue, no piercing eyes in the darkness. They aren’t going to come to you this time.

Kavinsky’s hands haunt the inside of your eyelids.

You just want to throw yourself into the fire. You might as well know how badly you’ve fucked up.

.

You find them where you left them, raising hell in Henrietta woods. The night is clear and cold with late autumn, everything pitch black under the branches of towering trees. You can see so clearly it might as well be noon.

It’s almost like a trap, Proko, Jiang, and Swan all cozy at the entrance, propped up together on the hood of K’s Mitsubishi. You don’t like the way the white chrome looks beside Swan’s dark arms.

(You try not to let it show on your face, the way your chest crumples when you see him standing there, whole and alive, just as you left him.)

You stop, unfortunately naked, unsure if you should even be here.

The three look at you, not unlike the fates. You wonder which one’s holding the scissors.

“Hey man,” says Jiang. He grimaces down at you, cigarette between his finger’s, unlit. Jiang doesn’t like tobacco. You wonder which of them he got it from. “Worried about you.”

“Heard you had some trouble last night,” says Proko.

You shrug. “I’m fine.”

“Still,” says Proko, and he beckons you closer. Two dark creatures battle it out in your chest. You approach anyway, and he pulls you in, gripping your shoulder hard. He smells sober, which surprises you.

Then you pull back. Jiang raises an eyebrow at you, and doesn’t make any advances.

“Still being a little bitch?” he asks.

“Hey,” says Swan. “Pot, kettle, Jiang.”

You freeze.

Swan smells-- wrong. He smells like not-Swan. He smells like a wolf in boy’s clothing, like something Kavinsky rubbed up against and bit. (Your grandmother notwithstanding-- and soon she won’t be-- Swan is all you have.)

Something in your chest collapses. You can’t feel your fingers.

“Tell me you didn’t,” you say, perfectly clearly. Not too loud, not too quiet. Almost gentle.

Swan looks you right in the eye. He says, “Didn’t what?”

There’s a new scar on his shoulder, shown off by what looks like one of Prokopenko’s old shirts. Jiang leans against him like they’ve talked, like they’ve fucked before, like it’s them against you now.

You think you might have missed something, before. This has never been about you. Of course Jiang was right. Why the fuck would anyone have chosen you? Why would you ever think this could be yours, any of it?

(If anyone could plan this, it would be Kavinsky. Of course it would be Joseph Fucking Kavinsky.)

It’s almost easier, acknowledging that.

Your mouth curls, but you don’t reply. You aren’t even sure you can breathe. You feel lighter than ever before. You turn away from him, ears buzzing, scanning the clearing.

It’s not a long search.

“The prodigal son,” says Kavinsky. He’s sprawled in the dirt; your heart is beating something fast and dirty against your ribs.

You don’t have anything to say. It’s easier to stomp on his hand, hard, grinding your heel into the ground. K swears, rolling away on instinct, ripping his hand away. It sounds like it hurts worse than your stomp.

“Son of a fucking bitch cunt whore,” he says. Your throat feels raw.

No one else says anything (you can hear, distant through the adrenaline, Jiang hissing in something like sympathy). K keeps swearing, even as he comes up, even as he takes a swing at you.

He catches you in the stomach; you get him one across the jaw. Your knuckles make a terrible sound, but you don’t care. Your whole body hurts, inside and out.

Everything is happening too fast and you move without thinking, staying human because you’re too mad to split. You don’t want to lose sight of yourself and your mission, which is to just beat Joseph Kavinsky senseless or die trying.

You remember someone saying, somewhere, that if you get into enough fights, eventually one will kill you.

You hit him low, right between the legs. Kavinsky staggers and drags you down with him, one hand in your hair, the other struggling to keep balance. You try to knee him in the same spot, slipping and ripping the grass around you. There’s hair in your mouth, blood dripping down from somewhere, making it harder to find purchase against each other. You give it your best shot regardless.

Kavinsky grunts when you headbutt him in the ribs. He strikes out blind and ends up slicing his nails across your cheek, so you catch his hand and crush it, hoping it’s the one you stepped on. Kavinsky howls, and flips you, knocking the breath from your stomach.

You get him one in the face between gasps; he cracks his arm against the side of your head. Stars bloom before your eyes, the world gently shaking.

Strong hands grab you by the shoulders and pull you back. You lash out, half blind. The person-- it’s Swan, you know it’s Swan, you recognize the shape and grip of his fingers, the venom in the way he knees you in the back-- barely flinches.

“You’re a fucking mess,” says Swan, carefully enunciating. He’s not wrong. You’re covered in dirt and sweat and blood. You cling to him despite it, nails digging into his arms. You don’t know if you’re trying to keep him close or shove him back.

Kavinsky’s leaning against Prokopenko, holding his jaw with a hand. Strands of hair are still caught between his fingers. He’s grinning. Proko’s just looking at you.

You spit, not aiming anywhere in particular, not trying to make a statement.

“Like a fucking bulldog,” says K. “You need to learn how to let the fuck go.”

“Fuck you,” you say. It’s half a mumble; your face isn't working the way it’s supposed to. Swan squeezes your shoulders again, pulling you into him. The scent of Kavinsky is everywhere. God, you really should’ve known. You shouldn’t have let them separate you, shouldn’t have let Swan come along, shouldn’t have fucked him, shouldn’t have called him in the first place. Shouldn’t have let Kavinsky take your hand, trace that five-pointed star across your skin.

(“ _Kill the thing that bit you,”_ says your grandmother _._ )

You lunge forward again, but it’s useless. Swan doesn’t let go, and when it comes down to it, he’s bigger than you. He fights to win; you fight to fight.

“Chill,” says Jiang, from his place just to Swan’s left. “Shit, dude, what happened to you?”

“Crisis of faith?” says Swan. You can feel his voice through your back. You close your aching eyes, just for a second. You tell yourself it’s to clear them.

“Let me up,” you manage. Wisely, Swan doesn’t budge. You try to elbow him, to throw him off so you can either finish what you started or crawl into a hole and lick your wounds. His grip, impossibly, tightens. It hurts like a motherfucker.

“Hey, Skov,” says Kavinsky. You blink hard, try to focus on his mouth. There’s blood on his cheek, left there from his hands. It feels wrong that you can’t tell which of you it came from.

He seems to be waiting for a reply. You don’t want to answer him, you don’t, but--

“K.”

He grins, because you keep giving him exactly what he wants.

“What’s worse, that Swan chose me, or that he didn’t choose you?”

It hurts just as much as he intended it to.

“Fuck you,” you repeat, lips numb. “You fucking lied to me.”

Kavinsky blows you a kiss. His eyes reflect the light like an animal’s.

“The world’s a lie, man,” says Kavinsky.  “Reality’s subjective. You lie to yourself every day. Who gives a fuck?”

Something black and dripping bubbles up in your throat. Everything, every twitch of his mouth, every syllable he utters makes you want to puke.

“You’re a piece of shit,” you say. You’re past seeing red; your vision fizzles at the edges, the static in your ears increases in pitch.  

You can still hear Kavinsky say, closer than you expected, “Let him up.” After a moment or two’s hesitation, Swan does.

You blink the spots away, trying to fight your way to your feet. But there are light and shaking hands on your shoulders. Kavinsky leans into you, barely stable; you grab his arms to keep you both balanced.

“You done?” he asks. You headbutt him a second time, hear the satisfying crunch of his nose, and he lands hard on his ass. Your vision swims. You’re pretty sure you just got a fuckton of blood in your hair. Swan’s got his hands on you again, but you’re not even trying to struggle.

“Yeah, I think so,” you say, speech still slurred through your ruined lips.

“Bitch, bitch, fuckin bitch,” he groans, but not with vitrol. “What’s with you and my fucking nose?” He says it ‘node’.

“Easy target,” says Proko. He gets his arms under K’s armpits and heaves; K just barely staggers to his feet.

“Fuck you man,” says Kavinsky, leaning heavily into him. “Hitting me while I’m crashing.”

He’s not the only one. All your adrenaline has left you shaking and lightheaded.

“It’s not like you don’t deserve it,” says Jiang.

“Et tu?” says Kavinsky. You close your eyes and sag against Swan. You expect him to drop you, but he doesn’t.

The forest around you growls. You reflect on how perfect it would be if the huntsman murdered all five of you at once. Poetic, even.

“That’s strange,” says Prokopenko, like it isn’t.

“Something smells off,” says Jiang. “And it’s not just Skov’s equilibrium.” You can sense it, too. Rot and decay and everything that sounds good now. Why’d you even bother running?

“That’s our cue,” says Kavinsky. “Time to take our prize and go. In and out, none of this loitering shit.”

“Prize?” you say, still a little dazed, made worse by the anger that isn’t gone, that’s making you shake on your feet.

“You, sweetheart,” says Kavinsky. He flicks you on the nose, hard. Your eyes water. “Bad dog. No biting.”

“Fuck you--” You try to swing at him, but Swan stops you with embarrassing ease.

A whisper, soft so only you can hear-- “ **I’ll give you a choice, Skovron. Kill the one that bit you, or come to me. One life for one life. It’s more fair than you were.”**

“And you, too,” you say. “Fuck you all.”

.

Proko takes K and the Mitsubishi, Jiang has his Mazda, and so you get stuck in the passenger seat of Swan’s Golf. You’re wearing Proko’s spare clothes again, and you’re grateful: Swan has the AC on full blast. You imagine he’s trying to freeze your mouth shut.

In the enclosed space, you can’t escape the scent of ruination. Wolf, everywhere. You pick at your newly forming scabs. Swan ignores you. Your head aches.

“Did he dope you?” you ask. You flick a scab towards the wheel. Swan still ignores you. “That’s fucking embarrassing, but I won’t blame you if he did.”

He doesn’t even have the radio on. You wonder out loud what this new trend indicates about his psyche. Swan doesn’t even twitch. He drives carefully, only ten miles over the speed limit, both hands on the wheel. It’s downright unnatural.

“Cat got your tongue?” you say. “Or your balls?” Not even a flicker of emotion. Even when his parents died, he was more animated than this.

It was bad then, worse than now. You were so young you didn’t know what you were doing, all awkward touches to his shoulders, sitting too close, your words sticking in your throat. The memory of it clogs your chest, and your stomach, never settled, lurches.

“Stop the car,” you say. “Swan, stop the fucking car.”

He finally glances over, expression hard as steel. “What--”

“I’m gonna hurl,” you say, and he jerks the car onto the shoulder, hitting the brake so hard that you barely have time to claw the door open before you puke. You at least manage to get most of it in the dirt, and not on Swan’s Golf.

It’s mostly bile, reminding you that you haven’t eaten in ages. Then you remember the huntsman, her eye coming up your throat, and you have to retch again. This time, nothing comes up.

“Jesus Christ, Skov,” says Swan, tired. You pull back, wiping your mouth on Proko’s sleeve, and slam the door.

“Rough couple days,” you say.

“I heard.”

“You let Kavinsky bite you,” you say.

“I asked him to,” says Swan. He doesn’t look before  pulling back out onto the road. Unfortunately, no one hits you. The streets are empty and dark. The woods loom behind you; you wonder if you could break a window and crawl back to them. How long she’d let you live, and whether Swan would come after you.

“That was a stupid fucking thing to do,” you say, trying to control the way your voice shakes and strains. “Care to explain your thought process?”

“None of your business,” he says, and it stings worse than spit in your eye.

“‘Joseph Kavinsky, good only for his drugs and his dick,’” you quote at him. “Fucking hypocrite. Did he make you beg for it? Suck his cock in return for a little nibble? Couldn’t handle not being special, had to go and fucking--”

Swan slams the breaks again, throwing you forward, and then accelerates rapidly.

“Funny story,” he says, voice colder than ice storm. “Kavinsky told me that’s what you did. You want to look in a mirror and dare say you’re any better than me? You want to play with darkness but you don’t know shit about it, you just fucking waste it. You’re not even from here, Skov. You don’t know shit.”

“I know more than you think I do,” you say. “I saw the way you look at him. Does it feel good? Finally being one of the big kids? Do you hate yourself less?”

“Shut the fuck up,” he says. You’re going well over 80, now, and steadily climbing. “I’m not you, Skov. My bullshit doesn’t spill over and poison everything I touch.”

He’s right. Swan ruins only what he means to ruin; you’re not sure you’ve ever left anything intact.

“Why?” You want to make him say it, you want to hear how much he hates you.

“You’re not the most fucked up kid at the dinner table anymore, Skov. Why do you think? Fucking christ, do you ever think about anyone but yourself?”

“I think--” you have to swallow twice, and even then, it’s still comes out embarrassingly bitter. “I think about other people.” Unsaid: _you_.

“No, you really fucking don’t. You think you’re the center of the universe. Well guess fucking what? I asked for the bite. I asked Kavinsky, and not you.”

You swallow.

“Grow the fuck up,” says Swan.

Your eyes burn. You say nothing. You watch the speedometer continue to climb, and you wait for that jarring collision sound, for your bones to pop loose from their sockets, your nose to split itself on a too-sudden airbag. You imagine it so vividly, his stupid fucking car wrapping around a tree or a building or another car, you’re surprised when it doesn’t happen.

You wonder if it’s always going to feel this dire between you. Every argument, every insult, every touch a whole language, every sentence spelling out glory or ruin, nothing in between.

Swan slows, eventually. He drives to Kavinsky’s house. You don’t get out when he does, you just lean your head against the window and close your eyes, and you wait. You hear voices, you can feel your blood buzzing in your veins. Then the voices grow fainter. You curl up in the seat, thoughts growing foggy.

Jiang opens the door, and the cold air scatters the vague drowsiness you were courting. He’s alone, and he looks at you when you look at him. Your chest clenches.

When he offers you a hand up, you take it.


	7. Chapter 7

Jiang leads you into his room-- his room, you know it, can smell it everywhere. It’s a goddamn mess, just like his old one wasn’t. It should feel stranger to find it in the depths of Kavinsky’s mansion.

He sits you on the edge of his bed, hands you a damp washcloth and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. You stare down at them, barely held in your ruined fingers. The worst of your pain is there, your jaw, and your ribs.

Jiang gets out a bottle of Jack, takes a swig, and passes it over. You’re not fond of whiskey (you prefer vodka, which is more something you do to yourself than a drink) but you take it anyway. It burns going down, worse than you were expecting, and you cough a little.

Jiang makes a soft sound, takes the washcloth away, dips it in the peroxide, and starts to dab at your wounds. This stings worse than the Jack.

“Where’d you go last night?” he asks. “You didn’t go home. I checked your dorm.”

You think it’s too bad he didn’t pick you up some spare jeans. Proko’s extras hang off your feet. They’re not ideal for a quick escape.

“Went to my Grandma’s.”

“Yeah? Cause a little bird told me they saw the cops picking you up.”

You shrug without looking at him, and then wince.

Jiang pulls back, setting the washcloth down.

“Does this even mean anything to you?” he asks. “You bit me.”

Unsaid: this is all your fault.

“You wanted it,” you say, because it’s what he told you, and it’s what you need to be true.

“Did you?” he asks. It’s not what you expected. You don’t say anything.

(Christ, you have never wanted anything else. Not like this.)

Jiang turns away. “I’m getting emancipated,” he says to the wall. “From my parents. I’m probably going to lose everything.”

You blink at him.

“Why?”

“Can’t stay there,” he says. “Especially not now, but before, too. Who wants to live with people who don’t give a fuck if you’re even alive?”

You think back to before. It bothers you that you were in his house and you never noticed anything. You thought it was normal, the constant bid for his parent’s attention.

“They basically disowned me,” he says. “I figure I might as well disown them right back.”

“Is that why we fucked up your house?” you ask.

“Their house now,” he says. “Kavinsky gave me this room until I find something else. If I find anything else.”

“Kavinsky likes his toys all in one spot,” you say.

Jiang laughs. “Yeah. But there’s a lock on the door and a window I can open from the inside, so who gives a fuck.”

You want to curl into him, to just. Hide in his room, hide inside him. You wonder what it’s like to just say things and have them not tear you apart.

“Want me to blow you?” you ask. You can’t think of anything else to offer, but you feel like you should give him something.

Jiang gives you an unreadable look. You hate that you still can’t tell what he’s thinking. What good is your second skin, really, if it can’t fix the gap between you and everyone else.

“You can wear my clothes,” he says. “They won’t fit but whatever. There’s a bathroom through that door.” He nods to what you had previously thought was the closet. “Clean yourself up and take a nap or something. Lock the door if you want.”

He leaves you alone. You don’t watch him close the door; you’re afraid of opening your mouth and begging him to stay.

You give yourself ten seconds after the door clicks shut, just breathing, and then you get up and flip off the light. You shower in the dark, loitering until the water starts to cool. You change into a t-shirt that smells like Jiang and only Jiang, along with a pair of his boxers. You’re too exhausted to do much more than feel.

The sheets are soft when you sink into them, pulling the covers up to your chin like a kid. You stare up at the ceiling, the faint sound of someone else moving through the house in your ears. You’re still trying to decide if it’s comforting or not when your eyes slide shut.

You sleep, either a little or a lot, you aren’t sure. Your dreams are vivid and utterly nonsensical, just a lot of horror and shame and fear. You wake, briefly, when someone screams. You can’t tell if you dreamed it or not, and you’re tired enough not to care. You sleep more, without dreaming.

When you wake for good it’s still dark, and you’re alone. Distantly you can hear voices. Presumably, they belong to the pack.

The dark is soothing. No one’s looking for you, and Jiang’s bed smells nice; teenage boy and fabric softener and weed. You bury your face in a pillow. Take deep breaths. Try to ignore the aching in your joints, in the cuts still all over. (Your body is probably trying to teach you a lesson.)

You’re not sure what day it is, if you’ve missed school or not, or if your grandmother’s looking for you. Things don’t feel real, like a good high, or taking a nap at three in the afternoon and waking up at eight. Lost time.

You sit up, drawing your knees to your chest. You don’t want to get up. You don’t want the others to look at you and your extremely visible bruises.

You get up anyway.

The others are in the theater, like always. The remains of someone’s takeout are spread out among them, and when you appear in the doorway, Jiang picks up a carton and tosses it to you. Well, more at you. You just barely catch it.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” says Kavinsky. He looks even worse than you feel, despite the patchy cleanup job someone inflicted on him. His black eye is more colorful than yours, all bright purples and yellows. Something inside you warms at the sight. From the way he looks at you, you know Kavinsky can tell.

You avert your eyes and investigate the carton-- mostly meat and vegetables. Not quite cold. Your stomach rumbles audibly.

Jiang offers you a pair of chopsticks. Against your better judgement, you approach.

“Family meeting,” says Proko.

“Intervention,” says Swan. “You’ve gotta kick the drugs man.”

Everyone laughs except you, and even you allow that if your world wasn’t crashing around your ears in violent grayscale, you’d probably laugh too.

You pick at the food, sitting down just out of Jiang’s reach.

Kavinsky slides onto the floor to match you. He grins wide, showing his teeth. You meet his eyes and will yourself not to react. You probably don’t succeed.

“There’s something in the woods,” he says. You mentally correct it to _Something._ “It’s not us, which is fucking annoying.”

“Insulting,” adds Prokopenko. He leans his leg against Kavinsky’s shoulder.

“We locked the doors,” says Swan. “Don’t worry.” When you actually look, they’re all touching-- Swan’s hand on Proko’s arm, Jiang’s feet thrown over Swan’s lap, his fingers trailing occasionally through Kavinsky’s hair.

You look away, down at your hands. Kavinsky makes a sound you could describe as a ‘tut’. You look at him, knuckles clenched and white.

“Man, are you still pissed?” he says.

“Fuck you,” you say, reflexive.

“Is that the problem?” He raises his eyebrows. It seems wrong that his teeth aren’t sharper.

“Quit it, K,” says Swan. Your jaw grinds.

“Nah, I think our baby boy’s still got something on his mind. Wanna share with the class, Skovron?” He says it mockingly, like it’s something he heard from someone else. You hate the way it goes down your spine, settling in your ribs.

You do have something on your mind. You just don’t know how to say it. You’ve already beat him to hell, what more communication does he need?

“You fuck up everything you touch,” you say, because if it’s true of you then it’s definitely true of him.

“Ouch,” he says, half laughing. You put your food to the side.

You lunge at him, only half trying. It’s not an attack, you just want something else to happen, to have an excuse not to use your words. Kavinsky catches your fist easily, turning it to the side and tossing you over him.

You both roll, Kavinsky locking his knees around yours so you can’t escape, easily batting your arms away. You end up with your face crushed against his shoulder, Kavinsky on his back under you.

(It feels better than you were hoping, caught and kept close. His skin radiates warmth, and you can feel his ribs digging into your skin through his shirt.)

He laughs at you. You can smell sweat and come and want through his shirt; the knowledge tingles down your spine. You wonder what they were up to, while waiting for you to get up. Your skin starts to warm; K’s arms are iron bars, one around your chest, one around your lower back.

Someone on the couch above you shifts, and you’re distantly aware of quiet talking, but Kavinsky blocks out the details. He rubs his cheek against the top of your head, holding you close. You wonder when something stops being a trap and starts being an embrace. God, you want to fucking hit him. You bite down but he just laughs. You shift against him, trying for a better angle, then--

“‘Fuck me’,” says Kavinsky. “That make you feel better? You gonna stop being a fucking coward if I let you stick it in me? Want to see me on my back, feel how tight and wet and--”

You stop him with a kiss that’s more a bite, pulling at his bottom lip hard enough to make him hiss in pain.

“There you go,” says Swan, and you remember the others. Violent heat threads through your face, your throat, all the way down your body.

“Yeah,” says Kavinsky, against your mouth. “You want them to watch?” He gives a roll of his hips, one hand on your ass pressing you forward. He’s just as hard as you are. You’re sure your face is bright red; you can’t wriggle your way out of this.

“We can all smell how much you want us,” says Swan.

“Get with the fucking program,” says Jiang, a little breathless. You glance up. Prokopenko is sucking at his neck, one hand already on his thigh. He catches you watching and you can see when his jaw tenses, and Jiang groans. Proko winks.

“I didn’t think it was that kind of night,” you say, trying not to sound as stunned as you feel.

Kavinsky laughs at you.

“It’s always that kind of night,” he says, grinding his fingers into the meat of your back. It hurts, but not in a bad way. You kiss him like you want it to feel worse.

He pushes you back after a moment, shedding his shirt. You bite at his collar bone, dig your nails into his too-visible ribs. He groans and jerks under you, hunger incarnate. You make sure the bites bruise.

“Pretty,” says Jiang.

“Pretty brutal,” says Prokopenko. “Fuck, Skov’s mouth is torn to shit.”

“You should see him after he sucks cock,” says Kavinsky.

“Yeah?” says Swan, who has. Your skin feels like it’s on fire. You hide your face in Kavinsky’s shoulder.

“Don’t be fooled, he’s hard as a fucking rock,” says Kavinsky. You sneak one hand down, grab the front of his jeans, and he groans so loud the others laugh.

“He’s not the only one,” says Jiang. You hear the sound of a zipper, then something wet, like a kiss.

You twist, just curious, heat thrumming in your abdomen, to see Proko with his hand at Jiang’s jaw, holding him steady while Jiang bends to Swan’s lap. Your hips jerk forward, automatic, and Kavinsky hisses between his teeth.

“You gonna let them beat us?” he says.

“Shut up,” you say, and pull back to take off Jiang’s shirt.

“Still mad?”

You don’t reply.

“Fine.”  K says, fumbling with his own fly. “Be like that, man. Be whatever the fuck you want.”

He pulls his jeans off just enough to expose his ass. You bite his neck in response; you can hear the sound of a cap popping open (where the fuck did he get lube and was he planning this, that fucking piece of--). You pull back to watch his skin flush where your mouth was.

Kavinsky wets his lips, then shifts, lifting his hips and moving his arm back and-- oh. You hold yourself steady, chest to chest with Kavinsky while he fingers himself. His cock twitches against your stomach. He moves like he’s good at what he’s doing, and enjoys it. He makes sounds-- almost little growls, and you can’t fucking stand it.

You grab his arm to stop him, and with your other hand you reach under him and slide in two fingers. He’s wet from the lube he used but you hope he didn’t use enough, that with your dry fingers it’ll be more burn than pleasure. When you fuck him, you want him to fucking feel it.

He clenches around your fingers, and leans up to catch your ear in his teeth. He bites hard enough to make you worry, but then backs off.

“That all you got?” he asks. You jerk your shoulder up to catch him in the jaw. You hear his teeth click together.

You pull your fingers out, not bothering to be careful, and shove Jiang’s probably-ruined boxers down past your thighs.

“About time,” says Kavinsky.

“Can you shut the fuck up, for five seconds?” you say.

“Arthritis is gonna get me before I can come,” he says, effect ruined by the way his voice catches in the middle of ‘before’. Probably due to the way you rake your nails from his ribs to his knees, leaving raised red welts behind.

You grab his thighs, spreading his legs and relishing the way his muscles flex under your fingers. Kavinsky lifts his hips, like a dare.

You take it, lining yourself up and pushing in hard.

“Christ--” he groans, and you curl forward, one hand still on his thigh, the other tangling in his hair and _pulling_. Someone on the couch above you groans.

He’s tight, feels so good around your cock that you have to take a second to collect yourself before you can actually fuck him.

When you do, you aren’t gentle, making sure you drag your cock against the spot that makes him groan and stutter every single time. You feel almost drunk with it, fever warm and frenzied. If you were taller you’d sling his knee over your shoulder for convenience, but instead you drag it forward, hard, and force him to keep it there. You want him to feel open, exposed, well fucked in front of his closest-- you’re not sure you can call the others his friends.

You want him to know his pack are watching their leader take it on his back. You want them to see him coming just from your dick.

“Fucking yeah, give it to me,” says K, lifting his hips. “Yeah--”

You bite his shoulder, then his arm, then pull back to watch his face.

It’s strange to see his eyes, clear for once, not hidden behind sunglasses. He watches the point just over your shoulder, mouth open to gasp in air.

“Yeah,” you breathe, barely audible over the slap of your skin against his. As though inspired, Kavinsky scrabbles for your hands, pulling them up to wrap around his throat. He holds them there as you rock into him, as much a request as he can make.

You leave your touch feather light, deliberately slowing your hips.

“Fuck you,” K groans, half laughing. “Or, wait--”

“Shut--” you thrust in hard, squeezing the sides of his throat. He gasps for breath. “--The fuck up.”

“Nah,” he says, voice wrecked and raspy. You dig your nails into his skin, can feel his hammering pulse against your fingertips. His jugular is right under your thumb.

Kavinsky grins up at you. “Gonna kill me?” he asks. Your stomach twists, unpleasantly. For a second, you can see the huntsman next to him, can taste her rage in the back of your mouth.

Christ, you fucking hate him sometimes. Heat burns strong in your throat and your stomach. You feel like skin that's been just barely stretched over a frame.

You take yours hands off his neck, slide them down to his shoulders, and roll until he’s on top. Kavinsky makes a sound you wish you could memorize. You squeeze pull his mouth to yours, kissing him hard. His nails dig into your biceps.

Then Kavinsky arches his back even further, gives a low groan, and comes. His pupils are blown wide; his face is flushed and sweat drips off his throat.

You only last a few moments longer. Part of you is embarrassed it happened so quickly, but the rest of you is focused on Kavinsky under you, pliant and breathing hard, his heart just a few inches beneath your hands. You bury yourself in him and he looks up at you, hair in his face. He looks the same as always, dead eyed and empty.

You could kill him, if you wanted. You could do anything. Your hands are still around his throat.

“Feel better?” he says, voice in ruin.

“Sure,” you say, and hate yourself for the truth in it. He tugs you forward, not letting you pull out, and rakes his blunt nails down your back. It feels-- not good and not bad, just strange. Too much sensation too soon.

“K, K,” says Jiang, from overhead.

“What?” says Kavinsky. He’s still looking at you, like he’s looking for something.

“Bedroom?” says Jiang. It’s half a question, half request.

“Yeah,” says Swan. “I want a bed for my turn.”

You shudder, instantaneous, and Kavinsky laughs.

“Your turn?” he says.

“What, don’t think you can take it?”

You’re breathing hard and sharp against Kavinsky’s neck; you wonder if he can feel you getting hard again, if that feels as fucking bizarre as you imagine it would.

“Bedroom,” echos Kavinsky, making it sound like an answering challenge. He rolls off you, leaving you splayed across his floor, legs still jelly. Kavinsky barely looks at you, getting to his knees, but you watch him wince.

Prokopenko’s the one to help you up, with Jiang to prop you up from behind.

“Hello again,” you say.

“Don’t pussy out this time,” says Jiang.

The five of you stumble to Kavinsky’s room, Proko half holding you up, kissing you over and over. Jiang shoves the both of you down onto the bed.

Your stomach is pressed against the mattress and you feel wanted, like you’re part of something, surrounded.

Proko shifts, half under you, tugging you onto his side so he can stroke your hair and your neck. You all but melt, pressing your face into his ribs.

Across from you, Swan matches you bite for bite, and Kavinsky gives as good as he gets. Even with patchy werewolf healing, you imagine he’s going to look like hell tomorrow. You wonder how it’s going to feel for Swan, with Kavinsky still slick from you.

Jiang rolls you over, biting at your neck and sliding a thigh between your legs. Proko’s still stroking your hair, tugging sharp when he gets close to the roots.

You stroke down Jiang’s chest to his stomach, dragging the pads of your fingers across his skin. He shudders in your grip, grinding against your hip.

“That feel good?” says Proko, voice deep and low. You twist your head to catch his fingers in your mouth. His other hand strokes down to your shoulder, digging into the muscle there.

“Yeah,” says Jiang, rocking faster. “So good-- Skov, shit man, can I fuck you?”

Behind you, out of sight, Swan groans. Kavinsky huffs a laugh that chokes off into a moan halfway through.

Jiang slides his lube-slick fingers between your thighs. It doesn’t take much for him to work you open and line himself up. You push back onto him, groaning against the burn.

“Fuck, fuck yes,” says Jiang, digging his fingers into the sheet next to your head for leverage. He starts to move, a little uncoordinated, and you lift your hips up to meet him. “Skov, shit, you’re so--”

You can hear the wet sound of Swan and Kavinsky, can feel them fucking through the mattress.

“Jiang--” you choke out, trying to hide your burning face in the sheets. You want to pull him to you, for him to fuck into you deep and stay there, but you don’t have the wherewithal to ask.

“So tight,” he groans, leaning down. He gets one hand on your ass, helping you keep your hips up, and crushes his nose against your temple. “Christ, so tight and eager for me, yeah?”

You gasp, soft, and he rewards you with a vicious roll of his hips. Precome smears against your abdomen.

“So good, fucking perfect for me, you take it so good babe,” he says. Your face is on fire; every ache and scratch is exacerbated by his movements. The heat in your stomach builds and burns, every touch highlighted by the wolf under your skin trying to reach his.

He presses your legs wider and your knees shake. They almost give out at every thrust, and the burn in your thighs and in your calves makes it sweeter.

“Proko,” says Kavinsky, voice wrecked.  “Get the fuck over here so Swan can suck you.”

Jiang makes a sound you’d almost call a whine, whipping his head up, hips stuttering. You twist around, almost losing your balance, in time to see Swan lick the head of Proko’s cock. His eyes are glazed, half lidded as he dips forward, hips rocking into Kavinsky almost absently.

It’s quite the show.

Jiang pulls out and you start, suddenly empty, but he only rolls you onto your stomach before fucking you that way.

“So we can watch,” he says, breath hot against your neck. He twitches inside you and you groan, bracing yourself against him. Your ass feels raw.

Swan, aware of his audience, grins just slightly as he tongues the slit. Proko strokes his jaw.

Under him, Kavinsky works his hips like a man possessed, one hand in his own hair, the other clenched in the sheets.

It’s a lot. Jiang shudders over you. You arch your back, one hand darting under you to stroke yourself.

“Fuck,” says Prokopenko, as Swan takes the head into his mouth. His cheeks hollow as he sucks, excess saliva dripping down his jaw. If you were someone else, you’d say he looked beautiful.

“God, yeah,” says Jiang, so just you can hear him. His skin is burning against yours, the slickness of sweat making you slide together just right. He shifts his hips, just an increment, and you gasp as you come.

Jiang groans, sinking into you deep, as you spasm and clench around him. You feel swollen and ruined and exhausted, used as he continues to fuck you.

Swan’s rubbing his stubble against Proko’s thigh, mouth open, and Proko’s swearing and stroking himself, flushed all the way up his chest.

“ _Fuck--_ Swan, yeah, fuck, harder,” Kavinsky groans. Swan, without taking his eyes off Proko’s face, reaches down and squeezes Kavinsky thigh, holding him down as he speeds up.

You get to watch Kavinsky come for a second time, someone’s cock in him. Jiang comes almost directly after, shuddering and gasping. It feels good, his come inside you, dripping down your legs into the sheets when he pulls away. You curl into him, chasing his body heat, just breathing.

It’s nice to look on the outside the way you feel on the inside; wrecked in every way possible.

Swan looks fucking dangerous, eyes glittering while he takes Proko all the way down. You watch a muscle in Proko’s thigh twitch, the involuntary clench of his hands, while Swan slides back. He comes over Swan’s face.

Swan licks his lips after, and Proko sinks down to kiss the taste from his mouth.

Then Swan pulls away, out of Kavinsky, and jerks off onto his lower back. Kavinsky doesn’t even blink, just stretches, shuddering when Swan’s come hits his skin. He extends an arm and you go to him; Swan collapses against your side, sandwiching you in. He strokes down your spine, touch impossibly light. It feels like an apology. You ghost a hand over his knuckles, your answer.

Everything smells like come and sweat and wolf, wolf, wolf.

For a while, you just breathe it in.

“Alright?” says Swan, voice low. You nod.

“Skov’s tough as shit,” says Prokopenko. He gives you a dopey smile, sprawled under Jiang.

“Not that tough,” you say. The words sound like they're being dragged out of you.

Swan scoffs. “You put me in the hospital once man, don’t lie.”

A pause.

“Shit. What’d you do, scratch his car?” Jiang laughs.

“We were in middle school,” you say. “It wasn’t a thing.” Swan keeps petting you. There’s a moment of silence.

“So like, Skov used to have a bone-breaking kink? You two just part of exploring your sexuality? Cause if so, a lot of things make sense now,” Jiang says, breaking the stillness. You can feel Swan silently laughing.

“I guess it was a formative experience,” says Swan.

“So--hypothetically-- car accident kink? Broken nose kink?” Jiang talks like he’s not paying attention to the words coming out of his mouth.

“Jiang, man, what the fuck?” says Proko.

“I’m just saying, it might be hot in the moment, but after? Is it worth it, Skov?”

“Shut up,” you say.

“Gonna choke him out, too?” says Kavinsky. He doesn’t sound much better than you.

“You asked for it,” you say.

“Crushed throat kink,” says Jiang.

“Children, please,” says Swan, playing at long-suffering.

“Gross, Swan,” says Prokopenko. “Not into it.”

“I could be convinced,” says Jiang.

“Not with me.”

“C’mere, baby boy, I’ll show you a good time,” says Kavinsky in his nastiest tone. Your body stirs, drawn to it despite yourself.

“Gross,” says Proko, but you can hear that same tone in his voice: reluctant arousal.

“Come sit on daddy’s lap,” Kavinsky continues, pulling Jiang over top of the pile. “I’ll make it good for you.”

“Oh, fucking gross--” Proko and Swan scramble away, jostling you in the process.

“K, seriously?”

You get an elbow in the face, but end up between Proko and Swan, so you’re not complaining.

“That a promise?” The bed squeaks when Jiang rolls his hips.

Someone’s got their hand on your thigh.

“Fuck yeah,” says Kavinsky.

.

The others are slumped in a pile, either asleep or getting there, when you get up. You wriggle out from under Proko’s arm and Kavinsky’s leg, and quietly slip away. The mansion is a maze but eventually you find the back door. The grass is wet under your bare feet.

Dawn light spills across Kavinsky’s yard. You tilt your head back, catching it across your cheeks and the bridge of your nose. You close your eyes against the glare, imagining how the sunlight must look, tangled in your lashes. When you open them, the huntsman is standing at the treeline.

She looks like a girl, tired and young and angry. She looks like you could’ve looked maybe, in a different life. Her glare certainly matches yours.

“I don’t have an ax. I guess my hands will work,” she says. Her voice is flat. Even with the distance, you can feel whatever’s inside her against your skin like static.

“Eat shit.” You toss the words at her. Under your bare feet, Kavinsky’s manicured lawn is slick with dew. “Oh, wait, you already did.”

“Failure,” she spits right back.

“Freak. Move on already. I won.” You’re not actually sure this is something that can have a winner, but it sounds good. You know it’ll make her angry.

“He deserves to die more than you,” she says. You’re not actually sure about that. “It didn’t have to go like this.” Then she smiles, because she knows as well as you do that it was always going to.

You figure, you’ve got a better chance on four legs, so you shift. It’s more difficult during the day, but not impossible.

You figure, you beat her once, why not again? (You’re good at underestimating your opponents.)

You skid when you run at her, just barely missing your mark. When she hits you, cold fingers brushing through your fur, you remember-

\- the way Kavinsky had asked if you were an accident. Every sneer that hit too close, every little rejection. Every time you called Swan and he didn’t pick up. White hospital walls and your grandmother, not crying, not looking at you. How it felt to think Swan might be dead. Your reflection in the mirror.

You get things from her too-- pain and terror. How it felt to lie in the mud, her blood and the forest floor, knowing there was no way out. That she’d fucked up--if only she’d called her aunt to pick her up, if only she’d left earlier when Brenna had.

It’s not a fair fight.

You can’t really tell the difference between the physical and mental blows, after a while. She’s you, partially. Angry and hurt and trying so hard not to be helpless.

_You’re certainly not that,_ you think, when she slams your head on the ground. Stars fly, your ears ring, you can taste blood. You might have bitten through your tongue.

Failure, failure, failure. Poor Skovron, can’t stop fucking up.

_I’ll fuck you up,_ you try, ripping at her arm. She tastes like rot, and your teeth don’t leave any marks.

Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? Not little red riding hood, wolfslayer extraordinaire. You sort of wish she’d been wearing a red coat that night. (After you were finished, she might as well have been.)

She’s got you pinned, nails digging into your face like claws. She drags you all the way back into your human skin, and you keep bleeding. It feels natural that way. You probably deserve this.

“Coward,” she says. “I could kill you.”

If you could speak, you’d allow that she could. You try to swallow past the blood.

“I bet you’d like that. I bet it would feel good, like relief.”

You close your eyes.

“It didn’t feel like that for me.” She hits you again, and you struggle, gasping desperately, trying to shake her off. Your human arms feel so weak, comparatively.

“There’s a darkness inside you, want to see if we can find it?” She pushes down on your chest, fingers sinking in and curling into hooks.

You try to swear at her, for form’s sake if nothing else, and she squeezes. Something goes _crunch._

“I’ve got something better,” she says, and suddenly she’s easing back. Her dull eyes are fixed on you.

The huntsman watches you struggle and spasm for a time, rolling in the dirt, shaking. You can’t breathe, you can hear the squeak of your lungs trying to pull in air through the ruined path of your throat. Worst of all, you can feel it healing, the wolf inside you forcing every splintered cell back into alignment.

“I will never stop hunting you,” she says. “You will see me in the shadows, behind your eyelids, and every night in your dreams.”

She leans close. You can smell her breath; it burns your eyes.

“No rest for the wicked, right?”

Your vision dims, either because she’s between you and the sun, or because your brain is starving for oxygen.

“One day, I’ll win, and you’ll know how it feels to lose everything that you are.”

You guess that’s fair.

She fades, like the dead are supposed to, and you watch. The two of you probably look uncannily similar.

Gradually, panting becomes easier.

You guess this is dealing with the consequences of your actions.

.

“Shit, man, you look like you tripped face first into a blender,” says Kavinsky. He’s sitting next to you in the trampled grass, smoking. The sun is high in the sky and it makes him look worse, all bruises and scarred, shaking fingers.

“Yeah,” you say, because he’s probably right. You certainly don’t feel any better than he looks. You’re on your back, right where the huntsman left you.

“Here,” he brings the joint to your mouth. You take a hit, then immediately start to cough, your newly repaired lungs protesting. Kavinsky laughs.

“How long was I out?”

“Not very,” he says. “I saw the whole thing. Almost thought it got you.”

“She did,” you say. The sky seems impossibly blue, stretching out over you, going on forever.

“Sucks,” he says, taking another hit. The sounds of morning are all around, bird calls and the distant rumble of the highway. Early commuters, people chasing sunrise. It’s reassuring, the  whole world full of people who aren’t you.

“Do you know what you did?”

“Always,” he says. “Can’t be a good thief if you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.”

You consider him. “I thought you did forgeries.”

He gestures at the sky, waving the joint. “Same difference. Can’t do one without the other.”

“Whatever,” you say, suddenly exhausted. “I don’t fucking care. I just-- why did you let me kill her, if you knew?”

“You think I could’ve stopped you?”

Your words are dry  in your throat.

Kavinsky waits a beat, then continues. “I know what you are, man. Let me show you how to use yourself.” He traces a pentagram in the air.

He’s asking you to burn with him. He’s asking--

“What, you want to go steady now?” You ask. Your sneer, as sincere as you can make it.

Kavinsky’s mouth twitches. “You didn’t like my Prom-posal? And I worked so fucking hard on it.”

“I don’t like you,” you tell him.

“Mmm,” he says. “Sure man.”

“I broke your nose.”

“Isn’t that like, foreplay for you though? Don’t front man, I can see how hard you get whenever someone so much as makes a fist around you.”

“I don’t,” you say.

This Kavinsky, in the sun, shirtless and shades-less, seems like almost a completely different animal. Maybe one you find half drowned in the gutter.

He takes a long hit, then plants a hand next to your head and leans down to share. His mouth is rough against yours, chapped lips and five o'clock shadow. You lean up on your elbows to chase it as far as he lets you.

“See?” he says, against your lips, then leans back.

“Mmm not,” you still protest. He runs a hand through your hair, tugging a little, then leans back.

“Listen, man,” he says.

You can’t really do much else.

“When I first saw you, you were a fucking hot mess. All fists thrown in the wrong direction, mooning after Swan like he hung the goddamn sun in the fucking sky. Waiting for him to fuck you or fuck you up. You weren’t shit.” A drag. You want to hit him. “Lots of potential though. Saw you at the football game last year-- the one where you knocked that motherfucker’s teeth out.”

You don’t remember him being there; you don’t remember a lot from that night, or after. Just that you were angry, and some kid kept getting in your face, and smashing his stupid fucking face in hadn’t helped.

“I saw you with blood on your knuckles, looking like the end of the world, and I wanted you and I fucking got you, man. Hook, line, fucking sinker. You were already high out of your mind when I bit you, running you through the woods. You kept fucking laughing, like it was the time of your life. But you still weren’t shit, you were almost there, the wolf was in you but I fucking let it out. Don’t forget that.”

You doubt you’ll be able, no matter how hard you might wish, one day.

“You left me there,” you say. “Not pretty enough, all torn to shreds?”

“I wanted to see what you’d do.”

“Well, you saw.”

“Yeah. I’m fucking glad it was Jiang.”

“Yeah? Sweet on him too?”

“He’s good for Proko.”

“Mm.” You try to stretch, wince, and then stretch again. Kavinsky drags an idle hand over your stomach.

“We’re all going to die,” he says. “Like that girl did, screaming and stupid. Bet I go first. Me or Proko, even odds.”

He’s right, but you don’t want to say it.

“It’ll be Jiang, sticking his nose somewhere it doesn’t belong,” you say instead. Your stomach clenches at the thought.

“Come on man, that’s you,” he laughs. “Shit, maybe though. World’s wild enough.”

You open your mouth, to say something like, _Swan is gonna last forever,_ then stop. You don’t want to give Kavinsky any ideas.

“You’re fucked up,” you say. “You should do something about that.”

“I did,” he says. There’s barely anything left of the joint, but he still tries to take a hit. You watch the last bit of rolling paper turn to ash in his fingers. “What do you think you’re for?”

Behind you, you hear the sound of a door opening.

“K? Skov?” It’s Prokopenko.

“Yo.” Kavinsky waves him over.

“What the fuck did you do to Skov?” he asks, when he’s close enough to get a good look at you.

“Wasn’ me,” say Kavinsky. “Found him like this.”

“I’m fine,” you say, automatic. You  push yourself into a sitting position to prove it. Could be the weed, the wolf, or the company, but you’re at least starting to feel better.

“See?” says K. Prokopenko squints at him.

“The hell did I miss?” he asks.

“Skov battling his demons,” says Kavinsky. “Then we had a heart-to-heart. I’m thinking a June wedding, but our boy seems adamant about winter.”

“Snow brings out my eyes,” you say, and lean your head against Proko’s knees. It’s not comfortable, but he doesn’t pull away, and you’re glad for it.

“If you two helped yourselves to my stash--without me-- I’m going to beat your asses halfway to hell.”

“I’ll pay you back,” Kavinsky promises. Proko swears at him, long and involved. You close your eyes.

“You find them?” It’s Jiang and Swan, fitting nicely into the missing spaces between you.

“Jesus, Skov,” says Swan. He bends to examine you, cool fingers on your cheeks. “Did you pick a fight with the fucking fairies?” He acts like he’s joking, but you bet he’d believe you if you said you had. This is your life now.

“Don’t call Kavinsky that, it’s not P-C,” you say, as mildly as you can.

Kavinsky knocks his shoulder against yours, uncaring of your bruises. “You do it to yourself,” he says.

You really do.

“Can we get a pizza?” asks Jiang. “I’m fucking starving.”

“It’s like, eight am,” says Proko. “We’ve got school.”

“Call me in sick,” you say. “Fuck that.” You can smell everything from your place on the lawn, can hear the birds singing about fucking and fighting, and you’re warm.

“Get your ass up, we’re all going,” says Swan. “If you’re good, I’ll stop at McDonalds.”

“Get fucked,” you say, but you let them pull you to your feet.

“Man, not until next week.” Jiang makes a face. “I’m sore in places I didn’t know could be sore.”

“Preach,” says Kavinsky. He winks at you.

“Seriously though, pizza sounds incredible,” says Proko, one hand at the small of your back. “Nino’s tonight?”

Jiang makes an agreeable sound, appeased.

They file inside to get dressed and ready for the day. You feel like it’s the day after your mother left, everyone trying to pretend nothing’s changed when your whole life has reshaped itself.

Kavinsky’s the last one in the door, next to you. He watches you hesitate, loathe to leave the sunlight behind.

“Come on,” he says, and steps into the darkness. You take one last, deep breath, and follow him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, shout-out to manyblinkinglights. without them none of this would have been posted.  
> i hope u guys enjoyed reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it.


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